Bellagio Day One

We start with 45,000 and the worst shape I was ever in was like 43,750. My high point was about 71,000 and I ended the day with 58,500. I played not a single big pot the entire day. I played one decent sized pot, but I flopped the nuts that hand and still had it on the river. It was my biggest bet, either calling or betting the whole tournament- by a lot. I bet 6800 on the river with my nut flush and got called by top pair top picker. In no hand the entire day did I have 10% of my stack at risk. Number of re-raises pre-flop: 0
Bluffs attempted/bluffs successful: 4/3
Number of pocket pairs JJ or higher: 1 (AA)
Number of times I raised on the flop: 1
Number of times I raised on the turn or river: 1 (had the nuts)
Number of dead money steals attempted: 0 I hear people talk about their styles of play as “LAG” or “TAG” and when asked what I was, my answer is pretty simple: loose passive. What’s the acronym for that? Whatever it is, that’s how I play tournament poker. My patience today: 100% (didn’t make one bored play all day)
My focus today: 38% (i got a bit of a head cold and was a bit fatigued.)
My luck today: Slightly below par. Didn’t hit a ton of hands, but didn’t really get cold decked at all either. So in a nutshell it was a pretty smooth/boring day of chipping up a little bit with virtually no risk. I’m more than happy to end the day ahead, and frankly, even if I had as little as 18,000 in chips I’d still feel comfortable in a deep stacked tournament such as this. This kind of tournament really allows the better players more than enough time to wait things out and look for good opportunities to build a stack. The 9:00pm finish each day is also fantastic and I know all the players love that format- it’s less taxing on the brain and body, plus you have the evenings open to do what you please. I was pleased to see two of my friends do well on day one also. I gave them a very simple lesson on the proper way to build a stack on day one and both players did very well using the strategy I gave them. It’s an approach they’d never used before, and both of them called me to tell me how much they loved it, and also how easy it was! It feels good to share with your friends, and feels even better to know that they not only appreciate it, but that they also see how effective it is. I honestly don’t have even a single hand to share with you all because I really didn’t play even one interesting hand on day one. As I said, no big pots, no tough decisions, just a tidy little low-risk profit on day one. The blinds tomorrow will be 400-800 which gives me a little over 73 big blinds to work with. That’s a ton of chips. The average stack is right around 70 big blinds which means the style of play will continue to have a deep stack feel for most players, and that’ll be the case well into day three. Tomorrow I look forward to another day of playing my system and ending the day with about 215,000 or so. If I end up with 75,000 that will be fine also, but If I catch some hands I could easily hit the 200,000 mark by the end of the day. No rush, patience is king, and I’ll worry about taking the chip lead sometime on day four. ***************************************************************** Tonight, I’ll be vegging with the dog, trying to get over this cold I picked up today, and watching Nip/Tuck, a truly twisted TV show. ]]>