PCA Update

The flights to the Bahamas were relatively uneventful, aside from them both being delayed around an hour. Unfortunately it's been very windy and what the locals consider "cold" (60-70f) so far, though the weather is supposed to improve a little today. At least it seems like the wind will be dying down somewhat.

I made it through the first day of PCA action, but busted early in the second day. I'm extremely happy with the way I played. My first table had Swedish Team PokerStars member William Thorson, as well as a friend of Tom Dwan's. Durrr had a piece of his friend's action and stopped by frequently to see how things were going. We also had run into Tom at the Cove's "Seaglass" bar the night before, though he was with a date so approaching him would have been dochey. During the first orbit we had a guy unable to fold KK 300bb deep in a hand that took between ten and fifteen minutes. I later coolered a German player with AA vs KK for a ~300bb pot and was off to a good start.

Later on I had a big hand with Thorson where I raised in MP with 87hh and saw a flop of 9s6s3d three ways. Thorson called my cbet, and the turn was a beautiful off suit 5. He called a large vbet on the turn, and then another on the 10x river which preserved my nut hand. I also bluffed Thorson out of a pot where we saw the flop HU and I took a b/c/b line that screamed "top pairish value" with my KQ-high. By the time my first table broke my 30k starting stack was up to 78k.

My second table had David Williams a few seats to my right. He played very similar to how I expected from having seen a bunch of his hands on TV. Anyway, I ended up losing one of the only two significant pots I lost all tournament at this table, when I lost a flip with AK vs QQ ~95bb deep in a steal vs blind scenario. After winning a few medium sized pots to recover (one from David Williams where I turned a straight defending my blind with 76s) I ended the first day at 52.9k chips, which was almost exactly the average.

Day two didn't last terribly long. I had Nenad Medic a few seats to my right, as well as another pro I'm certain I've seen before on my direct right. He was getting a lot of camera time, but oddly his name meant nothing to me. I also had Barry Shulman a few seats to my left. Shortly before Day 2 started, I had someone approach me to quickly shake my hand and ask what my stack was like. I'm fairly certain I have never seen this person before, so perhaps it was a case of mistaken identity as he definitely thought he knew me. If not, hopefully I find out who it was eventually.

Moving on, my stack became crippled after the first pot I opened Day 2. I raised T9s from MP, and got one caller from the SB. The flop came Th9h2s. I bet ~85% pot (a very large cbet for tournament play) and he floated with AJo. Turn was a J, and he c/shoved the rest of his ~45bb stack. I snap called as a 6.5:1 favorite but couldn't fade as the river was a deuce. Apparently butchering every street and floating OOP is good play, as when we checked in at the end of Day 2 on the villain he had a monster stack. Loldonkaments. Anyway, I had around 12bb left, worked it up to about 19 and then busted when I found myself on the wrong end of a 65:35 AIPF in a steal vs blind spot.

It's amazing just how many "big name" live pros were in the field. On Day 1, Phil Ivey, Vanessa Rousso (who won a 700bb+ pot with 99 vs AA vs KK on 9xx in a 4bet pot early in the day) and Sorel Mizzi were on tables adjacent to me. We've also seen just about every Stars pro in existence, as well as Durrr, Annette_15, Matusow, Gavin Smith and representing other sites. I got to chat briefly with Mats Sundin during a tournament break which was neat.

Anywho, I'm really happy that I didn't make a real mistake during play. I actually ran what felt like pretty well as I picked up a decent amount of hands and flopped well. But if you only lose when the chips go in and the villain isn't drawing dead, it's tough to survive.

So far we've spent a tiny bit of time on the beach and tried out two waterslides: "The Abyss" and "The Surge". The Abyss was incredibly intense, and my first time down I had significant doubts regarding my own personal safety. We've also eaten well so far, as the Cove (which is INCREDIBLY BALLER) has a world class buffet open for all three meals a day called Mosiac. It's rather expensive, but you can eat as much as you want and they make just about everything amazingly well. After experiencing the Cove, I think it would be pretty tough to stay in the "regular" sections of the Atlantis.

Hopefully we'll get to spend some time poolside suntanning and try out the other slides over the next couple days, book meals at the Mesa Grill and Nobu, and play with the Sea Lions and/or Dolphins at Dolphin Cay before returning on the 12th.