Venetian DSE Tournament Megapost

I picked a good day to drive up. Clear day without a hint of rain. The drive to Vegas always seems to fly by, coming back....not so much. I got to Harrah's around 2:30pm Tuesday afternoon, checked in and jammed over to Venetian. Within minutes I was sitting down at an $80 single table satellite. Top 2 finishers get $340.

The structure in their sats make them a turbo. You get 1500 chips with 15 min blind levels. But like most sats, they're full of donks. We lost 3 players within the 1st orbit. I hadn't even played a hand yet. In the 2nd orbit, i pick up QQ and raise it to 400 (blinds at 50/100), some guy to my left shoves. I call he shows KK, gg me. I decide to play cash for a bit to see if i can win a buy-in to another satellite.

After about 90 mins, I'm up +$100 at 1/2 NL and cash out to play another satellite. I did well at the cash tables this trip. the only down session i had was before Wednesday's noon tourney, i sat down and ran KK into a player in the BB who woke up with AA. We got it aipf and i didn't get lucky. Other then that one cooler, every other cash game session was profitable.

I get to the satellite area and I barely get into another $80 satellite that was filling up. This time we only lost 2 players in the 1st orbit. Gotta luv these. I pick up KhQh in the BB and smooth call a 3x pf raise. Flop comes 9 high with 2 hearts, i check/raise all in and get snap called by KdQd. I'm freerolling but don't get lucky, we chop the pot. I won a couple small pots after with 66 and 77, in the meantime we lose a few more players and we're down to five. I pick up AA utg and raise it to 400 with the blinds at 75/150. Two players call on the button and BB. Flop comes Q high and the BB leads out for 400. I pause/shove and he calls saying "i hope you have KQ" and shows QJo. Turn is a J and i'm out. He apologizes and I decide to call it a night.

I don't sleep well in hotels without Tina and end up waking at around 8am which is rare for me when i'm at home. I shower up and get back to Venetian to have something to eat. After breakfast, I register for the $330 DSE and take a seat at the cash tables. As i mentioned earlier, i got stacked with KK vs AA. Shortly after Chad walks up and he tells me he final tabled a bunch of tourneys on FTP the last couple days and didn't win any so he doesn't want to hear any bad beat stories. LOL

We take our seats in the $330 and i see KK once during the 2nd level only to pick up the blinds. I lose about $1600 with AKs right before the 1st break at the end of the 3rd level and am down to around 10k to start level 4. Blinds are only 100/200/25 ante in level 4 but there's a big jump in level 8 to 600/1200/100 ante so you can't sit around forever waiting for a monster. We find out the field has 311 players total with 1st place paying $28k, 2nd gets $16k and 3rd pays out $9k. 27 players total will be paid.

Within the first orbit after the break i pick up AsQs utg and limp. The player on the button and another in the blinds have been pretty active so i expect a raise. The button limps after it folds to him, SB folds and the BB makes it $1300. We both call and see the flop 3 handed. Flop comes 7 high with 2 spades, BB checks, i check. Button makes it 2000 to go, BB shoves and I shove. Button shoves as well, I mean why not right? The guy on the button has shown down all kinds of whack hands and even busted AA with J9s after whiffing the flop and shoving into the pf raiser. He caught runners of course. Anyway back to our hand, he shows 8sTs and the BB shows AKo (no pair, no draw just overs). Button had an inside straight draw to go with his 10-high spade draw. A spade binks on the turn and i take down a HUGE pot of around 27k.

I win a couple of small pots pf and lose another one with AQ against the same player i lost 1600 to earlier with AKs. We get involved in a big pot. I pick up JJ in the CO and smooth call his standard raise. Flop comes A-J-X with 2 clubs. He bets out 1700 and I raise it to 4000. He thinks for a bit and shoves I snap call and he shows AKo. I think this was a terrible shove on his part. The only thing can beat is AQ or if i have AK the best he can hope for is a chop. I barely have him covered and stack up around 55k in chips. This is what i finish level 6 with.

I'm off to a good start and have the chip lead at our table going into level 7. Blinds move up to 400/800/75 ante. At this point, I just want to try and maintain my 55k stack through the next few levels, pick up some small pots and hope for a good spot to take out one of the middle stacks. The shortys will start to get restless so I expect some race situations to come up. Not much happens the first couple of orbits until i pick up 99 in MP. A shorty in EP raises all in for about 7k, I call and it folds around. He flips AKo and the flop comes J-9-x pretty much sealing it. He does pick up a gutterball draw on the turn but it never materializes. I have over 60k at this point which turns out to be my high water mark.

Another couple of orbits later i pick up Ac5c in the BB. A shorty that just got moved to the table with only 6k shoves into my BB. I call, he flips AKo and flops a King to double through. Although I realize i'm probably behind most of the time there, it sends a message to the rest of the table not to fuck with my BB. I'm willing to call light.

We get to level 8 and i have around 50k. I pick up AJo in EP and a shorty to my immediate left shoves for around 7k, i call and she flips TT which is good all the way until a Jack binks on the river. Back up to almost 60k.

Then the wheels start to come off.

I pick up JJ and make a standard raise, It folds around to the BB who is the eurodonk that snapped AA with J9s earlier and got all in against me with 8s-Ts in the three way all-in where i tripled up with AsQs. Anyway, he shoves for about 10k and I snap call. He flips Q-To. I fade the Q all the way through the turn and he spikes it on the river to double through. That put me back down to under 50k.

I get down to about 45k after a couple more orbits then we move to level 9, 800/1600/200 ante. I wake up with AA in the BB and it folds around to the button, i'm hoping he tries to steal which he does. I repop and he insta-shoves. I mean he couldn't get his chips in the middle fast enough. He has around 30k and flips 7-7. He say's "bad timing". Then the board runs out and he catches runners for a J-high straight. I'm down to 15k just like that.

Shortly after, Tina texts me wanting to know how its going. I've been sending her updates throughout the day. I text her what just happened and the Dealer tells me she's going to give me a penalty if i use my phone during a hand one more time. I've been very discreet about it the whole time hiding my phone under the table while i message Tina. I tell the dealer, "so the last two bad beats you laid on me weren't enough huh, thanks for the warning". I was pretty pissed at that point with the way things were going but i wasn't ready to just call it quits and shove with any two.

I get to the 3rd break with around 12k and the blinds are about to go up to 1000/2000/300 ante. We play one more level then take a one hour dinner break. I get through level 10 with the same amount of chips and head to Grand Lux Cafe for dinner.

I come back from the dinner break on life support with the blinds at 1500/3000/500 ante just hoping to catch some hands i can shove with. Sitting in the CO after the break I have almost one whole orbit to pick up a hand. After 4 hands, i pick up QJo and shove. A guy who has a hard on for any Ace (he called a reraise shove for 2/3rd of his stack earlier with A7s and ran into AK). He calls from LP and flips A8o. I flop a Q and catch runners for a Q-high straight to double up to 24k.

I get through one more orbit and end up open shoving A9o from MP. Guy to my immediate left reshoves and flips 10-10. I don't get lucky and am done. I played 9.5 hrs to finish 50th for nada. Head to the bar to get drunk then call it a night.

By the way, i came back the following day to see who made the final table and the eurodonk who doubled through when he monkey shoved with Q-To from the BB into my JJ and binked a Q on the river was there. He ended up finishing 7th for $3601. Here were the final payouts for Wednesday's Venetian DSE Tournament prize pool Chad and I donated to.

Anyone who made it through all this, congrats and thanks for reading.