I woke up semi-early for Day 1, so I decided to get a jog in. For some reason I felt dizzy on the way home, and coming inside I actually felt sick to my stomach. My girlfriend gave me some medications she brought from home, and I showered till I was running late. Walking back down to the tournament I started to feel better. My starting table was a dream come true, with nobody of note and a lot of scared faces above their 10k in starting chips. I stayed pretty snug early on but once the blinds kicked up I started playing more pots. Every time I would chip up though I would go back down, usually with a continuation bet that got called, me checking the turn, and folding the river when I just had A-high or something.

I had one interesting hand come where at 75/150 made it 400 from the cutoff with 6d-9d from a 10.3k stack. The button, an 18-year-old kid from France excited to be in his first tournament with 9.6k in chips, called. The board came 5d-8d-J. I led for 550 and he made it 1100 instantly, looking a little tense. I knew the second he made the raise it was a weak jack, or at least I felt that way. Shoving him in was a bit of a big shove, but since it was early I thought I could bank on him to fold out almost all of his hands. I didn't read him for a set; his raise reeked of "I want to know where I am at". I thought he'd raise with a bigger pair pre-flop, and even if he flatted with queens he'd probably fold since it was early and live players and qualifiers have this concept of survival the first day. Even if I was completely wrong and he had a set I still had outs, so I shoved, he looked annoyed and folded a jack face-up.

A bunch of players started "educating" me about how on the first day the goal is just to last. While it's true you can't win a tournament the first day I really don't understand this line of thinking. The horse most likely to finish first in a race is not the one lagging behind all the others halfway. If everybody's going to keep folding to me I'm going to chip up while the getting is good.

I think this is a really hard concept to apply in live play when you start, because the natural feeling you have when you travel overseas and you're playing one of your biggest buy-ins is to not do anything stupid. "Not doing anything stupid" oftentimes changes to "not doing anything at all" though. I'd rather get in there and fight on day one and give myself a chance to win the thing or give myself plenty of free time the rest of the week to play golf. I'm not interested in minimum cashes.

Moving on, my day kept going well from that point on as the table really didn't want to play with me, and kept folding to me on the flop. I turned a full house at one point and got 70% of my opponent's chips by value betting every street into her weak top pair. I then was at 16k, but I spewed some chips and lost some flips with others. People were starting to get fed up with me and unfortunately I wasn't getting there by the end.

A player to my left had been fortunate enough to win a couple of hands and had doubled his chips. He was starting to splash around a lot, but he wasn't being very aggressive. He would call you pre-flop, on the flop, and when you checked to him he'd bet. I stopped raising with garbage and decided I'd have to have a hand to play with the guy. Many orbits went by but sure enough, a situation developed.

With a little over 11k a weak player limped in upfront and it got folded to me in the cutoff where I had K-Jo. I decided to raise to 1k at 100/200 blinds, and the splasher called from the button, as he'd been doing a lot. The blinds folded and the limper called. The flop came K-10-5 rainbow and I continuation bet 2k when it was checked to me. He called, and early position limper folded. I was close to certain he had nothing. He liked to raise up top pair and better a lot of the time, and he floated so often his call was really negligible. The turn was another 10, putting two clubs on the board. I hated the card. One of the hands I thought he could have, at his absolute strongest, was a 10.

Still though, I felt like it was much more likely he'd have something like 6-6 or A-Q most of the time here. I didn't want to bet because I couldn't see how I was getting more value out of a weaker hand. I thought the only hand he could have that he would continue with here was a 10, which had me beat. I knew that essentially anything he was calling with pre-flop he was calling with on the flop against me, given my image. I didn't think he'd check behind...he just wasn't that kind of player. You gave him the green light and went, every time. I decided to check-raise all-in, and get value out of all the hands he was floating me with, and just go shoot myself if he had the 10.

So I checked, he bet 3k, and I shoved in. He tanked forever and finally called with Ac-Jc, and I faded the river. I'm not sure I loved how I played the hand. The raise pre is loose, and probably not correct. Perhaps I could've navigated the flop and turn differently as well. The hand after that I got moved to Rolande De Wolfe's table. He seemed to have real control over the nits he was surrounded with, and he was running well to boot. I'd always heard he was an asshole but he seemed like a nice guy. Furthermore, he couldn't lose a hand. I folded the first couple orbits and just watched him chip up by playing most of the pots.

The first pot him and I played together was an odd spot. Blinds were 150/300, and a 4k stack limped in from early position, like he'd been doing half the pots. Rolande De Wolfe limped cutoff and I looked down at A-10o. Online I check here most of the time but I really thought Rolande De Wolfe could have a huge range here and I wanted to induce a shove from the short stack, because he was limping so many of his hands. So I grabbed 2k in chips and intended to raise to about 5x but for some reason the words just didn't come out of my mouth. I was tired, my brain glitched, something. I made it 2.3k to go instead as is and I didn't want to make it look like I didn't mean to do it. The initial limper folded and then Rolande out of nowhere made it 6.5k to go.

I wasn't expecting him to re-raise, and I couldn't really give him a big hand. Why would he limp 10-10 on up? Does he want to play a big multi-way pot with those hands? I thought a large portion of the time this was 2-2 through 9-9, occasionally this was a strong ace, and occasionally it was an absolute bluff. Given that I decided to ship in my 22k. He tanked for a long time and started asking me if I had A-K. I thought for sure he had A-Q then I started to get pretty nervous, and it probably showed. I didn't want to get up and look nervous so I just stayed in my position. Eventually, after about three minutes, he folded and I showed him the A-10. He looked like his dog died. After that I was really surprised how much that effected his game. The mental domination he had was just gone. The wind was out of his sails.

I, on the other hand, was running like God and had a whole table afraid of me. I started raising a lot more pots, and throwing the suited connectors and other random crap into my wheelhouse. Most of the time I got my opponents to fold on the flop, and when I did get played back at I kept having the joint. I had one guy, who was unbelievably tight most of the day, randomly check-raise me all-in with 8-high when I flopped a set.

There really wasn't much skill involved the rest of the day. I just ran really well for the most part. Rolande De Wolfe was the only one who gave me trouble, but he kept playing with me out of position, allowing me to take most of the pots off of him. The rest of the players just let me take every pot on the flop, and never played back at me. When one gentleman finally flopped a flush draw on me he overbet the pot big and ran into my top set, and I held, for a gigantic pot giving me second place chips at the end of Day 1A with 78,700.

* This was Part 2 of a three-part article. << Part 1 -- Part 3 >>