My plan was to write a combined PCA + WPO trip report, but the second tournament was a much better poker experience for me, and it’s much fresher in my mind. So here’s a micro-summary of PCA: I overplayed nines against a tight opponent, I gave gboro a bunch of chips with AQ to his KK, and I drank a lot of rum and beer.

I’ll say this about Tunica, Mississippi: at least they believe in personal freedom. I haven’t seen so much indoor smoking since the Reagan Administration. Just walking from the hotel elevators to the poker room is like smoking a carton of unflitered Pall Malls. My room smelled like musty smoke. Also, a dude in front of me in line at the gift shop said he wanted to “jew them down” on some prices. Ahh….Mississippi. At least it was cold, wet, and gray outside. But who cares. I was 100% focused on poker, and that part was excellent.

They drew a small field of just under 300, paying just under a million for first. The field was a mixture of top pros (Negreanu, Ivey, Hellmuth, Ramdin, Juanda, Greenstein, Mizrachi, many others), local wannabes, and a smattering of online guys. I did not see many P5ers, and the only one I am sure I played against was MattG1983, who I will discuss later (spoiler: he made a SICK play).

My first table had Amir Vahedi three to my right, which was fine with me. Amir is very LAGgy and does not like to fold once he gets involved. Plus the surrounding tables were sick. One adjoining table had Ramdin and John Phan, and another had Ivey, Negreanu, and Nick Schulman. Ivey seemed distracted and was out early. The rest of my table was pretty soft — bad locals and grindy, third tier pros. The 9 Seat was probably the meanest, most unpleasant guy I have ever played poker with. I got on his good side right away with the following play: He raises from MP to 350 and I call in the BB with 88. (note: starting stack is 20,000). Flop = 10c 10s 3s. I check, he bets 400, I call. Turn = 4d. I check, he bets 600, I make it 2000. He thinks for a while and calls, and I have him firmly on JJ or QQ. I have a tough decision to make on the river… unless…. BANG! River is a gorgeous 8 and I think it over for a while and bet 3600. He makes the crying call, I say “I got lucky, sir” and he literally pounds the table. He spends the next 15 minutes muttering and staring at me like a serial killer. This guy is nuts. I win a bunch of small pots with air and get up to 30k by Level 2.

The guy to Amir’s right limps a lot, and Amir picks up on it and starts raising him constantly. I am dying for a spot to reraise, but you need some kind of hand, because Amir will call you with anything. Amir takes a bunch of the guy’s chips on this hand: Limper limps for 200, Amir raises to 700, Limper calls. Flop = 227. Limper check raises, Amir calls. Turn = 6. Bet-call. River = 6. Check, Amir bets like 3000, limper calls. Amir shows 67s, limper shows 33. That hand sets up the sickest call I saw all tournament. Limper limps again, Amir raises again, and all else fold. Flop is J22. Limper bets out, Amir calls. Turn is a 5, limper bets big, Amir calls. River is a 7. All in. Amir goes into the tank. Amir has maybe 10k, and it’s about 7k to call. He takes a good three minutes and says, “I must be crazy….I call,” and he flips over J8s. Limper tables 1010 and puts on his jacket.

Now Amir has chips, and it gets crazy. He wins with AQ against a short stack’s QQ. Then he raises Mean Guy’s BB, and Mean Guy reraises big. Amir calls, flop is Qxx, and it all goes in. Amir has AQ again, Mean Guy has KK. Turn blank, river….ace. BOOM! Mean Guy pounds the table as hard as he can (and he was a large man). The whole tournament goes quiet and stares as the guy rambles about what a “stone f*cking idiot” Amir Vahedi is. Karma is a beeyotch.

I am hovering in the 30k range when I pick up AA in the big blind at 200-400. UTG makes it 1100 to go, he gets 2 callers — a tight player and Amir — and it folds to me. UTG has 11k left, and I want one caller, so I make it 4500, hoping that will get UTG to shove, but of course he calls, and so does Amir. Flop comes Jxx, I decide to go ahead and shove, and UTG calls all in. Amir folds, and UTG shows JJ. Bleh. I should have reraised it more preflop maybe, but I think he calls or pushes anyway, so I was destined to lose this one. That hand chopped me down to 12k, but I stayed cool and battled back.

With AK I raise in EP, Amir reraises from the small blind, and I shove. He asks me if I have a pair and so on, and he ALMOST calls before mucking AQ. I almost wish I had a bit less there. Then I get QJ, raise from the cutoff, and the button flat calls. Cindy Violette has taken Mean Guy’s seat, and she calls from the BB. More to come about her play. Flop = 9s 10h Kd. Yawn. Checked around. Turn is a 5. Check, I bet 2k into a 5k-ish post, button raises to 7k, Cindy folds, I push, he calls, and he has 55. Oops. River is a 4, and I am back at the highs. Not much happens from there, and I finish Day 1 at a respectable 31k+.

One last hand from Day 1: this kid sits down in Seat 1, and he is groggy. He said he took a nap during the break, and he is beat up from partying. A guy limps up front, Cindy calls, and the kid raises it up to 2k more. Both limpers call. Flop = 4 9 9 with 2 hearts. First limper weak leads 2k, Cindy raises to 7k, the kid goes all in for 15k, the first limper goes all in for a tad more, and Cindy calls. Limper has 44 (weak lead worked like a charm), Cindy has Ah8h (bleh), and the kid has JJ. A sick nine turns, and the JJ wins. Cindy had a lot of chips, but I absolutely hate her raise on that flop. There was no need for her to lose 20k with that hand. She was very nice, though. I also enjoyed Amir immensely — fun guy to play with, great attitude.

Day 2: Not a bad table draw, except Barry Greenstein has the chip lead and is three to my left. I have an uneventful first few levels, and I lose some ground. Typical hand: I raise with some kind of weakish suited ace when Barry has the small blind, and he calls; flop is ace high, all diamonds. I bet 3/4 pot, he calls, a hideous diamond rolls off on the turn, and I give him the pot on the river.

I struggle to maintain my stack, get no hands, and watch Greenstein push the table around. Luckily, the table breaks, I get moved to a rare table of no names in the corner. Eventually, Don Mullis takes Seat 1 and Mattg1983 takes Seat 2. I actually enjoyed Mullis, but he is pretty obnoxious. He definitely uses his nonstop table talk to induce action (think of a hillbilly NSXT2), and it works, especially when he is hitting (and he got a TON of big hands at this table).

Matt had some chips, got some more with KK, and then he made the sickest play I saw all tournament. I believe the preflop action was: loose aggressive guy raises from EP, Mullis calls, Matt calls, all others fold. Flop = KQQ. Bet, fold, Matt calls. (Matt may have raised here — I don’t recall). Turn is a blank. Check, Matt bets about 1/2 pot, raiser calls. River is a blank. Raiser checks, Matt bets either 15k or 20k. More than half of his stack is in the middle now. Raiser goes into the tank, then mucks AK face up. Matt shows 22 and scoops a zesty pot. That play was pretty far above the rim.

I did not get a pair above 88 from Level 7 on up, and I did not have AK until the last hand of the night, but I played some great short stack poker to stay alive and even chip up. I shoved 88 from the SB after the cutoff raised, and he folded without much debate. I shoved Ax after the small blind limped heads up, and he folded. Then Matt raised, and I pushed AdQd for about 29k total. It was about 23k to call, and there must have been something like 12k in the pot, so he was getting decent odds, but to his credit, Matt folded KQ. If he calls and my hand holds, I have over 60k, and I might have played the final hand differently.

With 10 minutes left, Greenstein draws a card, and they announce that we will play 7 more hands. (The AQ hand against Matt may have been one of the final 7 — I think it was, actually). We get to the very last hand, and I have about 36k left. They are passing out the chip cards and bags. Mullis has about 200k, the majority of which he won with KK by shoving in after an EP raise (EP raiser had 60k behind and was pretty tight; he called with QQ). This is going to sound very hard to believe, but I had a bizarre and powerful premonition that (a) I was going to get AK on the final hand; and (b) Mullis was going to push with a pocket pair. I look at my cards, and sure enough, I have AK. I raise to 7k, and just as I envisoned, it folds to Mullis. He is already talking before he looks: “Oooh, that’s a big raise — why so much? You know I’m gonna at least call. You can’t take my big blind. Miranda [masseuse], whisper something nice in my ear, baby. Ain’t she purty? Ooooweeee she purty. Golllleeeee….” And on and on. He finally looks down at his cards and almost immediately announces, “I’m all in.”

Like I said, I already “knew” he was going to shove, and I had already pretty much decided to call. So I called pretty quickly, and he jumped up and flipped ’em over. Bad news: KK again. Flop came 10 10 Q, I missed, and my chip card and bag went unused. No regrets at all about that hand, or my play on Day 2 in general. Overall, I think I did all I could with some below average cards and some above average table draws. This tournament was the most fun I’ve had and the most freely and creatively I have played live, and it left me wanting more. Congrats to mattg on making the money and on a very sick play.

Steely