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I played my first satellite to the WPT Championship today. It was bigger than I expected: 417 entrants and paying out 39 seats. 5k starting chips and 40 minute levels (starting at 25/50) so it was a pretty fast structure. I drew a strange table with a bunch of fairly tight players who would make huge preflop raises. I didn't do too much at this table, only two hands of note:

Hand 1: 50/100, ~6000 chips

I raise to 300 with JJ early, guy I've seen on tv calls, and a guy in late position makes it 1300 pretty quickly. I've been pretty tight, and he's one of the guys who has made a bunch of just bizarre preflop plays. He has about 5k total and looked pretty comfortable counting it out for me. After tanking for a bit I fold. The caller was semi-tricky too so I was somewhat concerned about him cold calling a big hand. Anyways, he folds and the other guy proudly shows his 99...damn.


Hand 2: 50/100, ~5500 chips

Guy who plays weird/bad limps, button limps, I check A9o in the bb. Flop comes Axx, two clubs (I have none). Checked to the button who bets 325, I call and so does the other guy. Turn's the K of clubs, checked around. River's the 9c, checked to the button who thinks and bets 700. I think and call because frankly he looked like he was talking himself into bluffing, he mucks.

I also have two resteals work and win a flip against a super short stack to get around 9k before I get moved to a new table which features Johnny Lodden (very well known online player) with an absolute mountain of chips (probably like 25k+ which at the time was huge). We play one pot where 6 people limp, flop comes JT2, I call his bet with KQ. Turn's a 5 giving me a flush draw as well, he bets I shove and he folds. Between that and another big semi-bluff, I get up to 20k before this hand.

Hand 3: 200/400/25, ~20k chips

Lodden raises UTG to 1400. Usually I think he does this pretty wide, but he'd been played back at a lot so I think his range is tighter than normal. I call JJ in the CO and the button calls as well. Flop QQ2 with 2 diamonds. Lodden bets 4k, I call, button folds. Turn is a complete blank, he checks and I check. River is the Td and he leads 8k. I think this is a pretty interesting spot. My hand pretty much looks like exactly what it is. I think he can discount the flush draws quite a bit since I'd very often just shove the flop (which I'd also do with a Q pretty often). Anyways, after tanking a bit I call and he immediately says "I rivered a 2 outer". Damn. I'm curious what he does on a blank river (like an offsuit 4 or something). My hand looks so much like a medium pair I assume he value bets there. The flush card makes those value bets so much thinner that my river call is probably bad. Oh well.

So that hand cripples me and I spend the next hour and a half pushing whenever I get a chance. I eventually run K6 into AQ and don't suck out. Anyways, I'm going to be playing the satellite tomorrow so hopefully I can win a seat in that. Otherwise Nat and I are going to have a lot of time in Vegas so we'll probably try to take a trip to the Grand Canyon and do some other stuff like that. We haven't heard about her luggage yet, but hopefully it'll arrive tonight.

Steve