I have a question for the members of Team CardsChat. Each individual one, in fact--what was your attitude going into this? In particular, did anyone harbor hopes of a really deep run and did you play to go deep, survive, or something I'm not thinking of?
I read some WSOP n00b advice articles beforehand and came in with realistic expectations...especially after
AJ Shulman sat down across the table from me wearing a shiny WSOP bracelet. I was very impressed with her play, and she was running the table for a long while.
My hope was to bag for day 2, get into the money, and everything else would have been icing as a first WSOP in Vegas. Although it didn't happen for me individually, the overall experience of LOFO and being part of the great team Debi put together was priceless, and I hope more CC members can meet up in Vegas next year. It was an awesome time, and I wish I could have stayed another week to rail Carl, Zach, and Kirk in the Main.
While I was waiting for my plane to arrive this morning, a Spirit Airlines rep announced that our flight was oversold, and offered free round-trip airfare anywhere they fly if 5 of us would take another flight 8 hours later. I seriously considered volunteering as tribute lol, just so I could bag a free plane ticket and go back to the Rio. Watching some of the big names do their thing in the Amazon Room tends to light a fire. I will put a video together so you can see it home video style.
Thanks for all of the support, everyone. I didn't post much here during the tourney because I found it difficult and distracting to do on my iPhone, but reading through the entire rail thread tonight really brought back a lot of excitement from the day.
I want to say a special thanks to BearPlay. Like several players on the team, I was wondering if I would ever get a playable hand or situation and was getting a bit tilted. I looked down at Twitter and Bear sent me a "Paws Up", which kind of snapped me out of tilt. A moment later, I picked up 99 in the BB and 3-bet them hard against a LAG 2.5x and a SB call. Flopped a set with a flush draw on the board (Q9x) and won a nice pot after the SB check-raised my 500 c-bet to 1200, and I put him all-in. He made a smart fold with AQ (shove was probably too much there), and it put me to 5k+ for a while after being down to 3400-ish. Maybe it was coincidence that I got a playable hand after BearPlay's comment, but I appreciated the support and think it had an impact on how I played the hand preflop. Thanks Bear, and hope to meet you in Vegas next year if you can make it.