I've been really busy since the Main Event started either playing, railing, partying or being hung-over so have struggled to find time to update the blog. I made it to Day 4 of the Main Event and looked really good for a deep run with 400k in chips at 3000/6000 (1000), but it wasn't to be this year :(

Day 2 was really swingy for me starting out with 44k, running it up to 80k then down the 15k then back up to 94k to end the day. My table draw was good as I only recognised 1 team Pokerstars Pro, who was dispatched of pretty quickly. I ran up my stack without any showdowns initially, just picking up lots of small pots with well timed bluffs. Then I managed to bluff off 50% of my stack and tilted off some more to go into the dinner break with 18k. The dinner break came at a good time as it allowed me to re-group and re-think my strategy going back with 22 big blinds. The 300/600 (75) level was pretty brutal for my style as I kept trying to put pressure on my opponents by representing the nuts, only to keep running into the nuts! After the dinner break I squeezed my stack up to 30k and got lucky to double up by cracking Aces. I won most of the pots I entered for the rest of the day and was lucky to make it through the day with 94k.

My Day 3 start table was an interesting mix of online wizz kids, top UK players and random donks from all over the world. I ran my stack up to 110k quite early by defending my blinds and buttons quite liberally but getting no resistance. Then I get into an interesting pot where I have to make a decision for my tournament life. Binds are 600/1200 (200) and a semi aggro Swede with about 120k opens to 4500, a donk calls in mid position and I wake up with QQ on the button. I raise it to 16,250 and within 3 seconds the Swede jams 120k in my eye. The donk folds and I have a reasonably tough decision. Although people do like to spaz against me I felt that in this spot I was up against 1 of 3 hands (AA, KK or AK). Either way I am drawing very thin or have to take a flip when I have an average stack. In the end I elected to fold because I could pick up chips in a lot of better spots against the random donks at my table without putting my tournament life on the line. After that I couldn't win a pot and went down to 40k in chips. Now I had no choice but to flip for my tournament life and ended up getting it in with AK v A10 pre flop to get back to 80k then ran AA into KK to get up to 150k. I lost a few medium sized pots to drop down to 100k and then I make the biggest suckout of my live poker career by over playing JJ to double up. I slow played my jacks pre-flop and ended up trapping myself on a 8 9 4 flop against pocket 88's. I was nearly half way out of the door before I hear the shouts of a possible bad beat from my table. I run back to find I spiked a Jack on the river to ship all the cheese. I managed to re-build my stack up to 330k but lost 3 key pots at the end of the day to end on 263k.

I went into Day 4 slightly above average with a table of similar stacks and with only 100 players to bust out before we reached the money I wanted to try and steal as many pots as possible. The only player I recognised was Paul Wasicka who is a nice guy and also a nitty player. He came into the day with a similar idea as myself and tried to open a lot of pots and build his stack. Play seemed to tighten up around the bubble as the rats tried to cling on for a minimum payout of $21k. As we went into hand for hand play, it took 2 hours to play 12 hands! I had position on the more aggro players and stole as many pots as I thought I could get away with so when the money bubble burst I was up to 380k!

When the blinds reached 3000/6000 with a 1000 running ante there was 18k in the pot to steal each hand pre-flop (if the table would let me get away with it). Unfortunately I got moved to a new table with a few big stacks who were ready to defend with a wide range of hands. This would be very favourable if I could wake up with a few hands or hit a flop. I was a little unlucky to run into a few hands and get counterfeited for a 175k pot leaving me with 140k behind. I end up busting out by making a big misread and shoving over a button raise from the big blind with K4, only to run into AA. I finished in 474th place for $25k which isn't too bad for my first $10k event and learnt a lot in the process. I feel like I made some great plays and some plays that were way too reckless, but all in all I am happy with the way I played and look forward to playing my next major event. I was amazed by how bad some of the players were and really felt like I controlled the action for the most part at all the tables I played.