I had a fairly solid first and only table yesterday. Bob Hume on my left, a pretty good player and Robert Williamson on the right. There was a gentleman two on my left whom I recognized from the Bellagio but not sure who he was and another guy on the table I knew could play as well. Jeff Schulman moved onto the table fairly late in the day with a pretty big stack.

I played fairly solid poker and ended up the day with 9900, 100 short of the 10k I started with. I made a couple of laydowns which were correct, but I would have won big pots on each one.

Some of my key hands:

1. AsKs at the 1st 150-300 Level

The table donkey who came in about 30 minutes prior makes it 600 utg. I raise to 1700 in 3rd position. Bob Hume on my direct left makes it 5100 and I'm thinking oh shit. I did not think he had AA from looking at him, but I really couldn't think he would do that move with anything less than QQ, and the first bettor probably had one of my aces killed. The utg bettor had about 23k in chips and flat called, I still didnt put him on much of a hand and didn't think he was savy enough player to flat call with either KK or AA. Even though the pot was laying great odds, I did not think calling was a good play with 12500 behind, I was either going to push or fold. I thought about it for about 2 minutes and decided to fold. The flop came eight high with two spades and all the action came on the flop, the donkey checked, Hume pushed and Hume turned over QQ the Donkey had A8! The river brought the 3rd spade and I would have taken down a huge pot. When someone makes that 3rd raise in that position I just don't like AK that much, even though to look at him I thought he was a bit scared, at best I thought I was 50/50 at best with the possibility of a dead ace. I made a decision and I need to stick with it, I just wish I hadn't seen the river.

2. 300-600

Internet Donkey makes it 1200 this time UTG and I have about 18k in my stack and flat call with AQos. Some fairly agressive player in 6th position makes it 20k to go fairly quick. I am kind of puzzled by the bet and am fairly confident I'd be racing, but really don't want to put my tourney on the line with AQos when I have a few chips. The donkey calls and turns over KQ, the bettor had JJ. A clean flop, but then a Q on the turn and blank on the river would have given me a big pot. Maybe I should have gambled, but it's a really tough call with AQ. I thought TT or JJ was most likely holding but AK was possible too.

3. 400-800

Robert Williamson had been raising from the cutoff when it opened to him and I had decided if I had any resonable hand and he raised again on my button I was going to push. He made a standard raise of 2400 and I moved in my last 10k with 88. SB and BB fold and he took about 2 minutes to fold. He told me he laid down AQ.

4. 150-300

Not a key hand but nice to take a small pot away from a pro with nothing. Williamson makes in 900 in the SB. I have T7os and call knowing if flop comes ragged I have position and can take it away. Flop comes J62, he checks I bet 1400 and take it down. He tells me he has KQ.

In general I'm not happy with the way I played yesterday. I didn't use my insticts enough which were right and went too much with the safe play. I need to play this like I'm playing a 100 and not like it's a 5000. Hopefully, I can get things moving right away on Thursday when the blinds will be 600-1200 with a 100 ante to start, so just taking down the blinds will be huge. I will be firing right away.

Ek