I only played one event after the $1500 NL, – the $1,000 rebuy, and boy was it ugly.

I was gambling a bit early on, just trying to double my initial stack. The next thing I knew I was in for over $15,000, and hadn’t even gotten that one pot that I wanted. My chips weren’t going in THAT badly either. I was only drawing dead once, and was an 80/20 dog once. Every other time I was at least live, if not the favorite. I lost two huge all-ins with two pair for example.

I finally won a pot, and after the add-on period, I was up to 13,000 in chips. The only problem was that it cost me $19,000. When they announced the prize payout, I figured out I would have to finish 27th place or higher (in a filed of about 1,000) just to break even.

Things started off well after the break. I won a coinflip for a big chunk of my stack with AK vs 55. My table had a ton of chips in play (thanks to all my rebuys), and I knew we were in the far corner of the room that wouldn’t break, so I really liked my chances at that point. Unfortunately, the next table over lost three players in a couple of hands, and they needed a new player, and the floorman picked me to move over. Bad beat.

The table I was moved to featured Marco (NoraFlum on Stars), Shaun Deeb, Sirens ($25/$50 NL player on Stars), and Houdini10 – all good online players or at least ones with good pocket 5″s ratings.

I did have the good fortune of having some real tight players to my left, so it wasn’t too bad for me. I managed to build my stack up to around 90,000 without any huge all-ins. I spent a few hours fluctuating back and forth between 60k and 90k, and ended the day somewhere in the middle with 76,900.

I built up to 120k really early on day two. By this time Michael Binger had been moved to my table who tied the record for most WSOP cashes in one year (8) when we got into the money – Congratulations Mike! Ilya Trencher’s father was eventually moved to my right, and Mr. Smokey 1 was moved to his right.

I stayed at around 120k for a while when Mr. Trencher raised my big blind from the small blind. Blinds were 2k/4k and he made it 12k. I called with J3s because I had position and my pot odds were stellar. The flop came Q77 also giving me a spade draw. Ilya bet into me for abougt 20k. At this point there was over 50k in the pot. I know Mr. Trencher is c-betting there with a very wide range of hands, and he can only call an all-in if he can beat a queen. I moved all-in (he had about 70k behind and I covered) and he thought for a short while before calling with KQ. I missed the flush draw and was short after that.

I was down to 8 big blinds and picked up A6o. It folded to me and I decided I was in too early a position for a shove to be profitable there, so I folded. The very next hand, I picked up ATo. I think I was utg 2 at a 9 handed table, and I pushed all-in. Shaun Deeb (who covered me) called me pretty quickly with A7s. He hit a flush, and I was out of the tournament. I think this was a really bad call on his part, and the fact that I folded A6o the hand before when I was in an even better position makes that pretty clear. The only hand in my range he’s ahead of is KQ. Oh well. That’s poker.

The thing that really sucked about all this was that despite cashing for $8,000, I actually LOST $11,000 on the tournament. In the last $1,000 rebuy tourney, I was in for only $3,000 (less than the “minimum”) and had 46,000 at the first break. I guess what goes around comes around, or some other such proverb.

For the 4th of July, my step brother Eric flew in, and I took him out with a bunch of friends to celebrate America”s independence the old fashioned way – Karaoke at a Thai restaurant. Ok, maybe that’s not the old fashioned way, but it was a lot of fun. I FINALLY got a chance to see my friend Dan Burdick “Place” in action. He is a two time regional karaoke champion or something. Damn he was good. He did a B52′s song and had the guy’s voice down perfectly! His showmanship skills were unreal.

Today is the Ante Up For Africa tournament which should be a lot of fun. There are a lot of big celebrities playing in it. Check out the list at www.anteupforafrica.org.

More importantly, 50% of the prize pool is going to a great cause. I’m not sure if this is 100% of their focus, or only part of it, but the money is going to Darfur. If you aren’t familiar with it, Darfur is a region in Sudan with some major conflict going on. I don’t know enough of the details to really educate anyone reading this, but there is some major genocide going on, and it’s just a terrible, terrible situation. There should be a lot of people playing this tournament, so hopefully the $5,000 buyin will be enough to make some kind of a difference.