2 PM Tuesday Jun 14 2016, WSOP (Rio), 375th (1069 entries)

Played the WSOP's 2 PM “Daily Deepstack” at the Rio. It was my first tournament in over a year.

I drew Seat 2 at Table 271, located in the corner of the yellow section nearest to the middle of the big room. The most unusual thing about this table was the large number of all-in hands before anyone was eliminated; we were deep into Level 7 when someone finally got knocked out.

It seemed the shorter stack usually had the worst of it too. One hand before a player finally went out, that player was holding QQ in an all-in matchup against a player holding A8 with a slightly smaller stack than his. Based on the bizarre luck players holding weaker hands were experiencing with all their chips in the middle, everyone sort of knew what lay in wait for the poor player holding the QQ... When the flop fell with an ace and no queens, we all silently thought to themselves “yep—no surprise there.”

It was uncanny how well the underdogs were faring with their tournament lives on the line: one hit a gutshot on the river to defeat a turned set, another holding QJ against AA turned a queen after flopping a jack, still another holding 9T against something like KK managed to turn a second T.

The table consisted of average, by-the-book players—nobody stood out as especially weak, or especially strong. Ages ranged from early 20s to what looked to be late 60s or possibly early 70s. The table included two women.

For the first couple of levels my stack gradually dropped from 15K to around 13.6K, but I managed to bring it up to 16K by the first break (at the end of Level 4). The first important hand occurred shortly into Level 5. I held

on the button. A young, somewhat active player with a larger stack than mine opened with a 2.5x raise in middle position. It got folded to me. I called, the blinds folded. The flop came

The young player continuation-bet 2K, about half the pot. After deliberating for about ten seconds I went all-in. Mystified, the young player deliberated for a bit before finally folding.

My stack was suddenly a few thousand chips larger. But this was only the beginning: the hand seemed to launch a trend. I won about three or four of the next seven or eight pots, causing my stack to double up.

I played pretty well throughout the whole tournament, until an important hand came up near the end of Level 9.

Sitting in the cutoff seat, I drew the

Three things conspired to cause me to overvalue this hand: (1) Before being dealt these tens, I'd only been dealt six pocket pairs: 33,55,TT,JJ,JJ,QQ. (2) Fatigue was probably setting in. (3) Still fairly new at this table, I didn't know how people were playing.

With my stack right around 45K (average-sized at the time), the under-the-gun player opened all-in with a stack about half mine. With a stack about half the UTG player's, the UTG+3 player went all-in. It got folded to me. Without giving any thought to what the UTG player was probably holding or how slim my chances might be, all I could hear was opportunity knocking. So I went all-in.

The button and blinds folded. The UTG player turned over

and the UTG+3 turned over

Nothing but blanks hit the board, so I lost half my stack.

Our table got broken up shortly thereafter. I took my small stack to a new table. After a few hands I was dealt

in early position. With my back against the wall, I went all-in. A few players folded, but then a player who easily had me covered went all-in. Everyone else folded and he turned over

No jack fell and I was gone.