And we are done for the day!

I will not bury the lede, as they say in journalism school.  Going into Day 2 (on Friday), I have 96,000 chips, nearly five times my original stack of 20,000 chips. This almost guarantees that I will cash in the tournament and pay out to my investors.

How did I get there?  With one miracle card on the second to last hand of the night.

Here’s what happened, in very embarrassing detail:

(1)  I had about 47,000 chips, going into the last four hands of the night.  I kind of knew, with the blinds being so high (and only getting higher) that it would be tough to cash on Day 2.  Those chips would evaporate quickly leaving me in the position of having to go all-in with a less than optimal hand in order to stay alive in the tournament.  Despite the advice I was getting from Wojo and Kurt Aichler (monitoring the situation remotely from his home in Mexico), I kind of subconsciously felt that I needed to make a play and boost my stack.

(2)  On the second-to-last hand, the opportunity arrived. I was dealt A10 of spades, a good raising hand (but one that I should never have actually messed with that close to the end of the day).  I raised to 6000.  Everyone folded (yay), except for one guy (boo).

(3)  The flop was KQ7.  For reasons I cannot explain even now, I bet all of my chips.  To be clear, I had no hand - no pair, no flush draw, and only a highly unlikely inside straight draw requiring a jack to hit the board.  But I guess I convinced myself that the guy who called me did not have a hand to call my 47,000 bet.

(4)  I was wrong.  The guy had KQ, which gave him two pair on the flop.  As you would expect, he snap-called my ill-advised bet and started counting his winnings in his head.

(5)  The turn was a blank.  I then said (very specifically), “I need a jack,” which would make my straight and win the hand.

(6)

(H/t to “Owl Babies,” my favorite children’s suspense board book.)

The jack hit like a bomb on the table, shattering the other guy’s tournament and saving mine.  I doubled up to 96,000.

The other guy would thereafter be knocked out on the last hand if the evening, after making his own ill-advised all-in with his remaining chips and not getting a miracle card to save his tournament.  Talk about a reversal of fortune.

So, there you have it.  I made an extraordinarily dumb move, and not only got bailed out by the Poker Gods but they rewarded me with more chips.  I am now above the average chip stack, there are less than 500 players left from the original 2500 entrants in Day 1, and assuming a similar number of players make it out of Day 1B, I will be able to coast into the top 15 percent and make the cash!

Wojo is also in good shape with about 64,000 chips.  He should make the cash too (woo hoo!)  We celebrated at the Rio’s only working bar with martinis:

Tomorrow is a day off.  I plan to see a movie with Billy’s wife and Wojo’s wife, work some crossword puzzles, and maybe walk the Strip.  No cards - I need a break.

Talk to you tomorrow!