Buckner Back in Shea

When Mike McD returns to Teddy KGB's lair near the end of Rounders, he says he feels "like Buckner walking back into Shea." That's kind of how I felt tonight as I walked past the familiar wannabe Tom Jones act playing in front of a hundred old people downstairs in the Gold Coast.
But this trip to Vegas feels different already. The air feels brisk and refreshing. I'm excited to be here. I'm playing with more confidence now than ever before. Because of this, I'm having more fun playing poker than I ever have before.

Yesterday at Foxwoods I just had a blast. I made a badass play early on, raising a checkraise with 89s on a Q75A board. I busted a player with JJ against 88 and was up to 130k. I was sitting next to Chip Jett and we were cracking jokes back and forth. Then the table broke and I got a brutal draw, with Alex Jacob harnessing an elephantitis-afflicted stack two to my left.

Jacob was playing with extreme aggression and I seemed to be his target. He showed down A5o, Q5o, 24o, and 74o. He reraised me five times and I didn't have enough to play with him once. I also doubled a guy up unnecessarily with A7 against his AJs and I found myself down to 70k. Then I won about 30k off Jacob with a straight to get back to my starting stack for the day.

I lost about that much back to Jacob later on with a bluff against a rebluff. I didn't really play any big pots until we were down around 100 players and into the money. I had been ground down to about 50k before a clutch double up with AA against QQ. After that I made a play on a guy with Q2o which failed. Finally down to 70k I made my stand against Jacob, outlined in ths morning's blog.

Jacob went out today shy of the megascore I'm sure he was after. He made a lot of plays that I wouldn't but I really respected his play. I really learned a lot from him, not just how to be aggressive but how to play against an aggressor like him. I also gained a lot from Hasan Habib - including two hundred dollars. Yesterday during a break we were talking and he told me he had 65k. I had 75k at the time. To my surprise he asked me if I wanted to swap a percentage of our action. I couldn't believe what I was hearing - the man has made about two million dollars in tournaments during the last year and a half, and he was willing to trade with me? He said I played really well and we agreed to swap 10%. Hasan went on to a 14k payday, $200 of which I will collect this weekend.

Tomorrow is the $1500 NL here at the Paris. I can't wait to get back out there.