TOC Day 1: A Powerful Hosing Force Surrounds Me

Actually, I should point out, and this is the honest to God truth, that maybe 3-4 months ago, Bill offered to buy as much of my action in the TOC as I wanted to sell. He said he just had a feeling I was going to win the whole thing. (I guess I should number that Portent #0.) Fortunately I did not sell him a very large piece.

My 1st table had a couple "name" players and the rest seemed generally solid and tough, but there were two people who seemed like the weak spots.

About halfway through the first hold'em round, Jeff Shulman raised UTG. I 3-bet it with aces. The button called 3 cold and the blinds called, as did Jeff (we had a lot of multi-way pots). The flop was A35 with two clubs. Jeff bet, I raised, everyone dropped to Jeff who 3-bet. I called intending to raise the turn. The turn was a 4, a bad card, but if Jeff really has A2 or 22, I can still fill up. He bet, I raised, he called. River is a 6, I bet after Jeff checked to me, he check-raised. I threw in a crying call and said "Do you really have pocket 7's?" He said "Oh, you guys are all going to love this" and tables 87o for the runner-runner nut straight. I was about a 24-1 favorite on the flop. I do think my betting the river was a mistake.

In either this or the next Omaha round, I missed a nut-nut draw and was down to $1800. Not in dire straits yet, but definitely not happy. My memory of what happened next is a bit hazy but my tables broke about 3 times and I picked up a few pots along the way so I had built back up to around 9K in chips when I got to my 4th table of the day in the middle of an Omaha round. There seemed to be a lot of calling pre-flop and no raising, and people betting straightforwardly. The following stud round seemed pretty soft too. At the break, I found my RGP friends and mentioned how weak the table looked in O/8 and stud and said as long as nothing too bad happened, I ought to be able to double up by the dinner break, which is more or less what happened. I typically got no cards in the hold'em rounds, made a bit in the Omaha rounds, and crushed the stud rounds which is amusing to me because I consider stud to be my weakest game of the 3. But as long as the other players are less experienced, you can feed off them. The guy on my right called me down 3 times when I had an obvious big pair. He only drew out on me once, spiking an ace for aces up but he gave me a free showdown. At dinner I had around 20K.

After dinner I mostly stayed even, pulling ahead and losing it back a couple times. I finished the day with T19,800.