Las Vegas - WPT Championship

I arrived in Las Vegas on Thursday evening, meaning I've decided to play in the WPT Championship. I haven't been to Vegas since last August, and I never realized how much I missed it until the plane actually landed. It feels like my second home. I checked into my hotel, had dinner, and made my way over to the THE place to play poker in Vegas, the Bellagio Poker Room.

I checked the waiting lists, and most of them were full, but there was an empty seat on a $50/$100 NL table, so I took it and bought in for $25,000. I didn't realize how tough the table was until about 5 minutes in. There was Kenny Tran 3 seats to my right, Erik Cajelais 2 seats to my right, Phil "The Unabomber" Laak 1 seat to my right, and Haralabos Voulgaris directly to my left. I ended up playing for a little over 2 hours. I won a big pot with 7c5c when I flopped an open-ended straight draw + flush draw against Kenny Tran and hit it. Then I won another huge pot with Aces against one of the other players at the table who tried to bluff me with Queen high. I ended up leaving the table with $52,600, for a profit of $27,600. I also played some $25/$50 NL last night and made around $12,000 so the trip has been very successful so far.

Today is the Main Event of the $25,000 WPT Championship! This is one of the biggest tournaments of the year, and rumour has it that first place will be paying over $4 million U.S.! The structure is awesome too, we start with $50,000 in chips, $50/$100 blinds, and 90 minute levels. It actually starts in 15 minutes so I have to get running! If you want to follow the live updates, please go to CardPlayer.com.

Also, I normally try to keep my blog strictly poker and I don't reveal many personal details, but this one is too exciting to hide. I recently got engaged to the most amazing girl in the world! I'm really excited about this and it feels much better than any poker tournament could make me feel.

My goal for Day 1 is to finish the day with $150,000 - $200,000 in chips. Wish me luck!