It's 3 a.m. the night before the official Day Two of my first ever WPT tournament, and of course I cant sleep... I've worn out the rug on my hallway....I've taken the elevator from my room down to the radisson casino at least 30 times to check and re-check chip counts (I have just over 50K) and starting tables. Looks like Mike Mizrachi is the overall chip leader with oh about 3 times as many as I have....excellent...

After maybe 2 hours of sleep and many miles walked up and down the beach, I settle into Table 14, Seat 6 with a 21st place stack ready to do some damage. <READMORE>

I recognize the face directly to my left but can't put a name to it; turned out to be steve zolotow. I also recognize Morgan Machina, who had a WSOP final table under his belt and who was short stacked in the 9 seat, and the only other person at the table that looked to be close to me in age had a buttload of chips in the 4 seat. Just before the cards get sent in the air, "kid w/ chips" introduces himself as Andrew Wiggins, AKA Muddywater online. Welp....I know who to stay away from!

I start out with the same strategy I had on Day one and bully my way up to around 70,000 chips. That's where I'm sitting when I get AQ in the small blind, and it's folded to the button, who of course raises it up! After I see he's got about 10 thousand total and most likely raising with anything, I reraise enough to force him to play for all his chips, but also taking care not to commit myself if the BB wakes up w/ a monster. Steve in the big blind folds, and Mr. Button goes ahead and pushes all in. I'm up against JJ, and a flop of K 10 2 gives me a couple extra outs but fewer cards to hit said outs... A Jack comes on the turn, and after the board fails to pair, I send my first victim of the day packing and muttering something about "punk internet kids"...

For a while, the only action worthy of note was the announcement that we had all made the money and the remaining 125 or so players would be leaving with at least $6000.

I get my stack to around 100k before the table breaks up, and I'm sent packing to a table consisting of the chip leader Mike Mizrachi, Barry Greenstein, and fellow online buddy ArtieCat. Knowing about "The Grinder" and his aggressive strategy, I make a mental note to try and stay away from him, and to trap him when I get something worth trapping... The very first hand I get KQ in the BB, and The Grinder insta-raises and its folded to me, and with my plan to stay away from him, I obviously call and see a flop with K high. The flop comes out Q J 5 and I check, he bets, I say in my head "Fold Fold Fold"....but my mouth says "I call," and we get a turn card of a beautiful yet dangerous 10 to give me an open-ender w/ top pair... I check, and the grinder fires out again a bet of around 25 thousand..I remove my card protector and am about to fold and yell at myself for not listening, when it hits me!! I'm good even if I dont hit my straight, because he has an inferior hand! So I go ahead and make the call. The river pairs the 5, and I cant say I'm happy about it, but am quite relieved when he checks behind me this time and my pair of queens rakes quite a pot...

Once again, there are a lot of pots where I raise or reraise and take down the pot preflop, and honestly those are just boring everyday hands that don't deserve any more acknowledgement than I've already given... With around 60 people remaining, my stack is sitting around 200k when I get em all in preflop with pocket Kings versus my opponents pocket Eights, and since poker is obviously rigged, he spikes an eight on the turn and the dealer ships a pot of more than 150k to the other side of the table, and I'm left steaming, listening to the Braveheart soundtrack on my iPod to try and regain focus. O.k. I still have over 100k in chips ready to exact revenge on mr. suckout when they break up my table....excellent!

I get placed under the gun at my new table and announce, "I'm warning you guys, I just lost a giant pot and am probably going to go on tilt for a little bit." I get dealt QQ and raise it more than any normal person should raise there, trying to take advantage of what I had just said, but alas, no callers. As I go to place my chips for the Big blind, the tournament director Jack McClelland taps me on the shoulder and says, "follow me, we're moving you."

Once again I'm placed in the under the gun position and announce to my new table the same thing I did to my old table..Who knows, maybe I'll get lucky w/ a hand again... Yup!! I get dealt two glorious Aces and grab a stack of chips and say, "I just dont care right now. I'll raise I guess." It's folded around to Men "The Master" Nguyen, who reraises me the minimum, I shrug my shoulders and say "Whatever..(release a deeeeep sigh for effect)..I'm all in." Men insta-calls w/ AQ, and I'm right back to where I was before the KK vs 88 debacle.

I finished the day at just around 250k in chips, which was good for 9th place w/ 27 to go...I'll wrap up this aruba report next time with a quick synapsis of how I got to the World Poker Tour final table, and I'll go into more detail of what happend at the TV table!

Part One</READMORE>