Ok, sorry for the lack of updates. I’m gonna try to split this update up into a few pieces so the big pieces of news don’t all get lumped together.

First and foremost, huge congrats go out to Steve “MrSmokey1″ Billirakis for winning the $5,000 mixed Hold’em event – the very first event of the WSOP. This made him the youngest player ever to win a bracelet at the tender age of 21 years and 10 days. Smokey is living in the house with all of us, so we were all there cheering him on. It was a lot of fun to watch him. We were making prop bets on him against Greg Mueller, the guy he played heads up. Ship the money our way.

I would say that this is a record that probably won’t ever be broken, however, they are starting the World Series of Poker: Europe this year. That means that some 18 year olds will get a shot at winning a bracelet, although I think there are only three events.

I started that event w/ David “Raptor” Benefield (very good successful online player that just turned 21, keep an eye out for him) to my right, and Smokey directly to his right. Chris Vaughn from Bluff came over to cover me and Raptor, and I told him that Smokey was a really good player that he needs to start covering. Obv Smokey went on to win that tournament. He made one really sick river call against a huge river bet all-in with 3rd pair no kicker and it was good.

Here is a list of the events I played at the beginning of the WSOP:

Event 1: $5k Mixed Holdem

Event 3: $1.5k NL HE

Event 4: $1.5k PL HE

Event 5: $2.5k Omaha 8 / Stud 8 split

Event 8: $1k Rebuy

I started off ok in the first four events, winning some chips, but never lasting that long.

The 1k rebuy was the first tournament I got chips in. The table was somewhat loose, with guys like Josh Arieh and John Racener spending a fair amount on rebuys. I was up to 20k chips (you start with 2k, 2k for an instant rebuy) through standard rebuy shenanigans after only two rebuys. Then a HUGE pot happened.

I think blinds were 50/100 and there was a 5 way raised pot. I called in the big blind with 74 of hearts.

The flop came KT5 all hearts giving me a flush. I led out for 800. The guy to my left also had a monster stack of around 24,000 (he was probably chip leader of the tournament at the time). He raised to 1800. It folded to Josh Arieh who was going somewhat crazy with the whole rebuy thing. He moved all-in for 5,000. It folded back to me.

So what do you do in my spot? I talked to a few people, and they all thought it was a really tough spot. I guess none of them were actually there seeing the dynamic of the table, because I thought it was a super easy decision. I think most of the people I talked to actually said just call, but I shoved all-in. It wasn’t the first time (or the 2nd, or 3rd…) that I had made a large all-in like that, so it’s hard to know if I’m gambling or actually have a hand. Anyway, the guy to my left with a ton of chips felt like gambling for a huge stack before the rebuy period ended, so he called with KxQh. Arieh had 9x9h, and somehow my hand held up. I ended up with 46,000 at the first break. I didn’t even bother adding on. (Every chip you get in a tournament is less valuable than the chip before it, so chips at 46k are no longer worth the add-on price yada yada yada). I think 2nd in chips only had around 22,000.

I didn’t really pick up any hands over the next few hours. I managed to break even with some occasional steals. After the dinner break, the blinds were pretty huge, and I lost a couple of big pots, and that was all she wrote. One involved running a boat into quads on a super scary board.

In the first few events (other than the 5k), I felt just like I did in Tunica. The players were extremely weak, but I didn’t really feel like I knew how they were playing and/or what level they were thinking on. I kind of expected this since this is my first world series. After the 1k rebuy event, I really felt like I had a good idea on what kind of players I was up against. Despite not cashing after having a huge chip lead, I felt unusually confident going into the $2,000 NL on the next day. There’s a lot to discuss there, so I’ll put that in my next blog.