Pretty good day, even though it started off slow for the first two levels.
Not every day you get to bust Erik Seidel AND have him replaced by Daniel Negreanu -- in an event with a likely field of 10,000+ unique individuals!
A record 3,080 registered for today's 1C. About 2100-2200 registered for Days 1A and 1B combined. That already puts the figure at around 5200.
Add tomorrow's likely huge 1D, plus the Day 2 registrants, and 10,000+ is likely.
I mostly played small ball, and was fortunate enough not to lose any significant hands. The few tough folds I made were correct, as I found out either at showdown or by the person showing me their hand that I made the right move.
The aggression I showed today was also well-timed, as I was pretty good at firing when my opponent(s) were weak, and backing off when they were strong. My aggression was also selective, so my bets mostly garnered respect.
I had two interesting hands with Negreanu which involved pocket 7s.
The first I had black TT, raised in the cutoff, and a Euro, who had not yet gotten out of line, 3-bet me. Negreanu, who was short but not crippled, elected to pitch his 77 from the BB. Flop came Q74. The Euro bet the flop, I called. Turn check/check on a blank, and river I bet/he called after thinking on a Q (which is basically a blank here). Negreanu was irritated he got ran off the 77, and correctly called that the guy likely had a 4. The guy sheepishly conceded that he did, and said embarrassingly, "This is the first time I 3-bet light all day... and this is why I shouldn't do it!"
Negreanu wouldn't have gotten a ton out of me, as the Q high flop would have run me off the TT if he leaned too hard on me, but he still would have won some much needed chips.
Not too long later, an Asian guy raised in early position, and Negreanu 3-bet. This time I was the one with the 77 in the blind. And like Negreanu, I chose to fold. Why? Because Negreanu had a stack which was going to be tough to play against -- not tiny, but small enough to where he could easily go all-in with a hand which either beats me or is behind me. I decided it was too hard to play 77 there, plus I had to worry about the early raiser. I pitched it. Flop was TT3, and it turned out the Asian guy had 66, and Negreanu couldn't beat it -- presumably ace high. They checked the turn and river. Oh well. When the flop was TT3, I remember thinking that I would be stuck calling off a shove from Negreanu had I been in, and I didn't like that -- not in this event at this deep point.
Erik Seidel was the first one out of the table. He seemed to enter a lot of hands, though otherwise played reasonably, However, when he couldn't get himself back to starting stack, he finally punted with AK on a missed board, and the guy next to me snapped him off with QQ, and this sent Seidel down to 7k or so. He got his final money in against me, fortunately with a lower club draw than my ace-high club draw, leaving him only with pair outs, which he did not get. My busting of Seidel made Pokernews.
My high point was about 140k, but I was card dead most of the final hour, dropping me to 130,700, which is well above average. We started with 60k.
More next post.