Happy Birthday Blog

It's been a year since my first post on here. I've made some really good friends through blogging and playing poker. It's been quite a year. I want to wish a very special thank you to Shea for keeping my friends and family updated of my progress in the WSOP Circuit Tournaments in Tunica this week. It was awesome!!!!
Rags and I drove up very early Sunday morning so that he could play in the Monster Million. It was a very trying afternoon for John. When we got there they wouldn't check us in yet. When we did get checked in he had a hard time getting the internet to work and the tourney started before he could get it up. By the time he had any way to play it the distractions had taken their toll and he was out soon after.
I met up with Wes and his friend soon after and we grabbed a bite to eat and played a few qualifiers. Wes and I wound up heads up and I bought my way in to the first event on a chop with him. We decided to play it down for the last 50 bucks and he cracked my hammer with a measly pair of eights; can you believe it..hehe.
There's not much to talk about from the first event except to say that it gave me a really good feel for how the structure would be in Event 2.
I played a single table $65 tourney that night for a $500 tourney chip plus 50 bucks. Once again I played down to 2 players and chopped it, getting in to the 500+50 for half price.
The blind structure is very good in these tournaments but they don't start you with very many chips so the first three or four hours you have to be very careful until you can chip up a little.
In event 2, Rags and I both managed to make the money. The biggest hand I hit went like this. I was in the big blind with the 5 and 7 of spades. A guy in middle position raised the $400 big blind to 800 and got a call from the small blind so I called also. ( my stack at that time was up to about 5,500 from the 2,000 we started with) The flop brought a 6 and an 8 along with a face card (I think it was a King). We checked it to the raiser and he bet only 400. The small blind called and so did I. The 9 hit on the turn giving me the low end of the straight. I really didn't think the raiser could have 7 10 but I was keeping my eye on the small blind. I had a good read on him and I was almost positive he had hit the king and was slow playing it. The river was a deuce and I felt positive I would get some action so I led out with 400. The raiser went all in and the small blind called. I called as well and they turned over AA and KK. I tripled up to 15,000 and thank goodness I did because I went completely card dead after that and rode that stack in to the money for 49th place and $665.
Rags played his normal excellent game and made the final table finishing in 9th place for over $5,000. Way to go Rags!!!!!!!
It was a great trip and I look forward to the next live tournaments I get to play in. Thanks to everyone for the kind words and well wishes during the trip.