My first small goal for the day was not to dust off a bunch of chips on the first level being cute. I honestly don't remember the action, but I lost about 15% of my stack in a hand I probably shouldn't have been in on the very first hand. Bad start, and I did get the feeling right away that I wasn't going to have a long stay.
This feeling was exacerbated the next hand when PokerStars pro David Williams filled the empty seat to my immediate left, turning a relatively benign table into my own personal table of death. If you've played poker with me (especially these days, when I am definitely an amateur) you know I like to play a LOT of pots. David Williams likes to punish people who are in lots of pots. I would guess, over the course of the day, he 3bet 50% of the pots I opened and called another 40% of them.
I decided early on I would basically play passively versus him, but be willing to make some big call downs. Totally fishy strategy, but I knew I couldn't outplay him and I didn't want to totally nit it up, so decided I'd give it a try at least.
First big hand with that strategy, I opened QJ and he flatted. Flop was QTx with two hearts. I cbet and he called. Off-suit 9 on the turn and I checked (fish!) he bet and I called. Off-suit J on the river and he bets big. I tanked for a little bit, but ultimately called and was good.
Next hand was even fishier. I had KJ on a KTx two spade board. Turn brought the flush, river brought the straight (without improving my hand) but I still called down turn/river bets and was good again.
So things were going well, and I won a couple big pots vs other people as well. One when I bluffed the KQJTx river and a guy tank folded. I showed the bluff, which was stupid in general, but paid off in the short term when a couple hands later I donk bet a rivered straight against another player and was looked up light, again in a pretty big pot.
Before end of level 2 I had doubled my 20k starting stack.
Then things turned. I had K5s in sb and it was folded around to me. I was pretty sure DW would 3bet me, so I decided to just complete and call his inevitable raise. Which happened, and the flop came KT2r. Turn was whatever and river was a 9. I called three barrels, and lost to David's rivered two pair (T9).
A bit later, I raised A9s OTB and DW 3bet. He checked and I checked behind on the A84 board, and called his big bets on the 4 turn and blank river. He had 42o for the turned trips.
From then on, he had the momentum, and, increasingly, the chips. I couldn't seem to make the right adjustments. He was playing incredibly aggressively, and I couldn't quite decide between locking it down or playing back, and constantly got myself in bad spots. Gave back all my gains. Then I doubled up a shorty with 99
I did manage to win a few pots without showdown over the rest of the level, and went to the last break of the day right back at my starting stack.
First hand of Level 7, dealer is just about to go and DW's not there. I'm on the button, and feeling happy that I can actually have my button without him in the SB (although next most solid player was to David's left, but whatever). Last second, David sits down. FML. Until I look down at AA. Not FML.
Folded around to me, standard open, standard DW 3bet. I'm trying to think if a shove or a normal 4bet would like fishier (about 30 bbs deep), and basically decide just to shove cause it's first hand back, I might look impatient/fed up, and also I just don't want to play post-flop anyway. (Have I mentioned I'm the fish in this story). Happily David did think I was messing around and called with A6. Turn brought a gut shot for a small sweat, but an innocuous river and I was back to 40k.
Which is more or less where I finished, a couple hours later. Disappointed with how I played but real happy to have survived the day and planning to play much better today.
Overall couldn't have been more impressed with DW, btw. Total class act all day long, made surrendering pot after pot to with him without showdown almost bearable.
