**** TJ's 2026 WSOP Trip! ...And Continued Sundry Poker Adventures ****
Hello again, friends!
I’ll start this thread by channeling my inner karaoke DJ, and invoking the timeless lyrics from the
So the 70 minute “dinner” break came at 3:40, and I decided to stick to my plan of jumping in the Paris pool and then eating something in the room I had gotten the day before even though staying at an airbnb. Bad idea. Instead of this:
Spoiler
I felt this:
Spoiler
What I also realized was just how dependent upon my phone I have become in tournaments. Constantly converting my stack and others into bbs with my calculator, checking profiles of other players, etc. when people are moved to the feature table their info is no longer displayed in the app, so I just assumed I couldn’t see the table details on my phone. Bad mistake because I could have spent my break figuring out who everyone was rather than asking for help from the Jaka whatsapp chat.
I also made the mistake of checking in on about six diff friends/family group texts. I had turned off all notifications before the day started. This was a terrible idea.
I get back to the table with just a couple of minutes to spare.
At first unsure of what the blinds even were at this point I raised ATo from MP or LJ. Guy at other end of the table in cabana wear 3b me. I thought about it for a minute and folded. Sounds like he had A7? Dang.
Now back down to 3mm or so Ensan raised UTG, it folded to me in HJ and I look down at QTs. Totally over-thinking and leveling myself (he’s seen the T9 hand which was shown on break or has had someone tell him what I had, etc etc ) I just flat 200k. Cabana wear sharma in sb makes it 550k. I plan on folding until Ensan calls. I come along. If I am totally honest I made this call thinking about how ****ing cool is it going to be to flop a royal flush in position three ways on ESPN on day 6 of my first main event. The one I satellited into with 1.8bb.
No piece of the flop someone bets I fold.
NOW the doubt seeps in.
Wait a minute. Did I just double cap myself for 20% of my stack that is probably worth $200k on day six of the main event, just a handful of players before the beginning of some serious pay jumps after we waited 50 people to get $10k (98 gets $75k; 140 something was $65k). Yes Brian, you did. What are the blinds? Oh it’s easy now 100k.
My stack? Just about 2.5 million. Ok, entering re-shove territory. I know this game. I was between 10-20bb all of day three until an A high hero call on the literal last hand of the night got me to 990k. There are heaps of chips all around me. LFG (all of this was flawed thinking at this stage of the tournament. Forgot that ICM I should think about my stack differently, from 1.25-1.5x so in theory I should have still been playing a 30 bb strategy m)
French guy to my right raises HJ. He has so many chips and it’s late position he has to be wide. The guy to my left and I are the two biggest targets at the table.
88?
Spoiler
All-in. (This is barely a jam in chip ev)
QQ.
GG
Follow up thoughts:
1) Whoop is a fitness tracker.
2) a friend w $5mm+ in tournament winnings doesn’t hate my 88 jam like I thought he would. The QT 3b call on the other hand was bad, bad.
3) I got amazingly lucky to make it this far. Had a great day 1, up to 150k, but a hard day 2 table with not a lot going on. This gentleman two to my right taught me an expensive lesson on how to negate positional advantage:
Spoiler
Every time I 3b him he called. Every time I Cbet on the flop he xr. Just brutal to play against.
In the final level of the day a newish mid 60’s white guy in a Chicago PD hat sat down to Henrik’s right, hadn’t played too many hands when he 3.5x raise in CO. Henrik BTN calls. I look down at AKs in BB and jam 30bb. Chicago PD calls.
Spoiler
4) day 3 I grinded the hell out of a short stack all day long. Went back and forth from 10-20bb with literally probably 15 all-ins. Maybe 4 were called. Of those, I won QJs>KQo; A8s>A9o; QQ>AKo on a K h flop w 4 card flush. I defended 94s in the bb w 12bb and got a full double on 944. I folded AKo w 13bb in the HJ against an OMC 4x EP open, only to have CO call w AQ and win the hand vs OMC 66 on a Q high flop.
Last level of Day 3 I had a stack that would have seen me make the money, when a new spewy charismatic alabaman sat at the table to my direct right - of the 6 hands he’s seen at our table he has won prob 3 of them, with big pots and aggression each time:
5) the hand of the tournament for me was literally the final hand of the day on day 4. I had about a 575k stack at this point, plenty to come back with on day 5 w/ 20k BB. I raised UTG w AsKc. BB, a big stack Argentinian pro w a few million in cashes, defends and we see a Q68 rainbow flop. I cbet he calls. He leads out of flow on a Qd turn, putting two diamonds on the board. He then bets all but about 75k of my stack on a 6c river. The whole table is waiting for this hand to be over so we can bag up for the night. The more I think about it, the more likely I feel he just sees an old American guy dressed to play golf who really really really wants to make day 5 of the main event, and he can push me out of this pot because I dont want to be crippled. Little does he know that i know that, and also that I know that a 4bb stack with 2 hour levels is still playable. Also that if he actually had a ****ing queen he would have checked turn to let me keep bluffing at it. So I call. And flip over my hand. He mucks.
Spoiler
Now we come back to day 5 with 50 bigs!
I actually finished 101st. Poker News says 107th under chip count, but it is wrong. If you click on my profile it will say the true number which is 101st.
Thanks for letting us share the ride brian. Crazy that the 2 2p2'ers posting about their runs went out at pretty much the exact same time. Glitch in the matrix?
Awesome stuff Brian. Congrats again and thanks for sharing.
Great call in the AK hand. Easy to play armchair QB from my keyboard, but it sure feels like a weird line for value on that board. Obviously he never does that with stuff like 77, TT, or even 6x. Still a tough call to make in a big tournament with so much at stake. You channeled your inner Josh Reichard. Had to feel great to end the session with a hard-earned (almost) double up.
Fun to hear about your battles with Hecklen. Not sure what the correct adjustment would even be there. My instinct would be to increase my 3-bet size to punish the stickiness and play a super polar range to have either top value or pure air, but I've never had a grizzly bear going after me like that.
5) the hand of the tournament for me was literally the final hand of the day on day 4. I had about a 575k stack at this point, plenty to come back with on day 5 w/ 20k BB. I raised UTG w AsKc. BB, a big stack Argentinian pro w a few million in cashes, defends and we see a Q68 rainbow flop. I cbet he calls. He leads out of flow on a Qd turn, putting two diamonds on the boar
This is awesome 😀 It's good that you are aware of your image and how others might percieve you. Being underestimated at a poker table is the best thing ever, honestly.
Against a recreational I would obviously never do this, but knowing that he is an Argentinian pro - although I have nothing against Argentinians - I would have been very tempted to be an a-hole here and ask to see his hand. Although it's fairly obvious that he had some kind of draw that missed, I guess.
well just look at the big brain bets from brianr
refreshing to see your start of diary documentation after thrupply being caught blind and shart stacked after back to back wee days from last week swiftly turned into all our estimated proxy tournament envy
am i correct in imaging a zing ¿Por qué no? basically freerolled a 10k wsop promo into such a uniquely fullfilthy fantasy experience
only suggestion worth offering now is to immediately dock and insta-start downloading every flashy last card thought via plausible medium able to be playable later while searching for mental memories after saving down to backup as much of it as you can to remember everything
I have hand histories on 95% of my hands from the main. Day 6 i stopped writing down standard RFI / cbet / take it down spots or defend / folds, and that first hand on the feature table is hazy but otherwise have it all. I do need to go back and edit, add detail, clean up etc, but sounds like Faraz may wind up using this for a lesson/series of lessons which is basically just free coaching for me so I’m all in.
Thoughts on the skill level for the first few days? I realize table draws are very real, but just wondering if it was lol soft on the first couple days or if it felt like a pretty tough event from the get-go. I've heard different things from different sources. I imagine that by day 4+ when most of the chaff has been separated, there aren't an abundance of weak spots to be found. Typically the streamed tables look very beatable on day one or two when there are some people in there who have no business playing a 10k.
I was debating pretty hard with myself whether to start on day 2 or not.
I am so glad I played day 1.
Hand 12 L2
Jun raises 700 utg
Hero raises MP 2100 A♠︎Q♠︎
Eli calls btn Jun calls
Flop 6700 Q♣︎9♣︎4♥︎
UTG checks
Hero 1700
BTNcalls UTGcalls
Turn 11500 7♦︎
UTG checks
Hero 12000
BTN calls
UTG calls
River 47500 2♠︎
checks checks checks
Hero good
H13 L3 200/400/400
Jun raises to 800 LJ
BB calls HJ
Hero calls 44 CO
BTN calls
BB calls
Flop 4400 T♣︎8♦︎4♥︎
Checks to hero 2200
BTN goes all-in 31000. YES YOU READ THAT RIGHT
Hero calls
J♦︎T♦︎
xx
I imagine if I had 44 in the above hand the turn would've been the 9♦ lol
"Nothing easy, Nothing ever easy. We're going to Game 7! Game 7!!!"
This interlude to cheer on Brian’s Main Event run came at a great time for me, because I haven’t had much fun to write about, for my own poker adventures.
Started July on a 3-session losing skid, at 3 different venues. I didn’t run well, and I don’t think I played particularly well, either.
I kept my life in balance, focusing on my work, instead of pressing, and chasing it at the tables, when I wasn’t playing well.
Went to the gym yesterday, which is ALWAYS a great start to the day. Then went to G last night, and won 1.9k, which was a step in the right direction. I played much tighter, and more patient than I’d been playing, which I think is exactly what I needed.
One thing I’ve learned is, when I’m grinding through a stretch of bad variance… the best way out of it is to focus on what I can control. It feels bad to be running bad. But no matter how I’m running, my mindset will be in a better place, if I’ve worked on myself, and put in my time at the gym.
It makes me more alert, engaged, disciplined, and sharp, at the tables.
So that’s what I’m going to keep doing.
Somewhat regrettably, I’ve decided I’m not going to go to the WSOP Circuit event at Cherokee coming up in August.
Historically, out of the 4 Cherokee stops a year, the August one does the lowest numbers, being right after the main WSOP in Las Vegas. February is the best.
I could only get one of the two weekends off work, the Main Event weekend… which is less desirable to me than the mini-main first weekend.
To play the Main Event, I’d want to budget for at least two $1700 bullets. I’m still recovering from my summer. Hotel, gas, and food for a Cherokee weekend is an easy 1k-1.5k in overhead, before I even play a hand.
And it’s not like there’s no other opportunities on the horizon. Danville is getting their first WSOP Circuit event in September, which I want to check out. Then, of course, Cherokee comes back around after Thanksgiving.
So I’m going to focus on my grind here locally, and keep working on myself in the gym.
