After the first day

Man, I'm beat and it's only 10pm. I sure felt myself slipping after 9 hours of poker. Luckily the cards have been running very good and I'm up to 26,575 now. I have not had bluff (much) and I have only showed down two hands vs. all-ins. AA and AJs. We'll redraw for tomorrow so I can't take advantage of my tight image anymore.

First hand after the dinner break, blinds 100/200+25 I started out with AJs, raised early to 600 and got reraised all-in by 77 all-in with less than 1000. Off to the races and I turn a flush on him.

Second hand I raise with AQo and steal the blinds and antes.

Third hand I raise UTG+1 to 600 with red kings and figure someone's going to look me up now. Sure enough the really aggressive huge stacked bully calls me. Flop comes Axx with two to a suit. Well, I figure I'll play it like AK protecting against a flush draw. I check, he bets 1500 and I check raise to 5000. He lays it down after a few seconds thought. Phew. That puts me at 20,000 and I decide I better slow down.

Not much happens for while.. the bully goes to battle a couple of times with a 10k stack or so, who gets really lucky by doing things like hitting a gutshot all-in and hitting two pair with his A9 vs. AKs. He is very re-aggressive, reraising all-in a few times and either not getting callers or making hands.

Seat 3 is somewhat of a revolving seat. There are still 7 of us from the original 10 still at the table since the beginning of the day, but seat 3 has gone through 5 people already. Cursed, we decide.

With blinds and antes growing to 200/400+75 the short stacks get really tight and the big stack gets really aggressive - it seemed like only once he doesn't open raise, but no one has the guts to take a shot. Must be nice to have 52k or so.

I make a couple of "loose" plays like calling a raise and cold caller (although that Mr. bully) with ATs in the big blind, and manage to flop top pair with the T. I bet out 5k and the bully folds, saying it was push or fold. I would have been left with 10k if I folded so I'm not sure if I would have called a push. Tight image helps I guess.

So I'm probably in decent shape now, maybe in the top 1/2 or top 1/3 of the field. We'll pay again with about 270 people so it'll be another slogging day tomorrow. I've been really happy with my play, although most of the hands have played themselves and I haven't needed to make any fancy plays yet. Conserve and survive again. Hope it continues tomorrow!