I was in, and I was out. I lasted until 10pm on the first day. Sure, I would rather have lasted until I was rich beyond my wildest dreams, but I'll have to settle for having had a good time.

I slept well and went over to the PokerStars breakfast at the Rio. I was a little nervous, but not much. Made my way to my seat.

Here was my first dealer.


Here was my starting chip stack.


And here is the guy who knocked me out.


No hard feelings. I had been doing pretty well, but ran into 1 hand that crippled me. I had 6 8 in the big blind and the pot was unraised. The flop came K 6 2. I decided to take a stab at it with bottom pair. Got 1 call from a very aggressive player. If he had anything good, he'd have raised preflop. The turn was Jack. I decided to try once more. I bet, and he called. I was done. But then the river came and it was an 8 giving me 2 pair. I checked, he bet, and I called thinking he had a K. He did, but his J with it gave him a better 2 pair than I had.

That put me on life support with about 5000 chips when the blinds were 100/200. I survived that way about 4 hours, looking for a way to double up. Stealing just enough pots to stay steady. Finally, in the end, I made a move against a loose aggressive player who made a button raise into my small blind. I had A J of spades, and he called my all in with A K of diamonds. The flop gave me 2 spades, but those were the last ones, and that was all she wrote. The fat lady had sung.

I have no regrets. I think I played fairly well, and I had fun. There is one more WSOP tournament while I am here on Thursday. A 1000 buy in event. Maybe I'll try to win a seat to that one too. As long as I am here. Otherwise, there is always next year. But now, I am going to sleep.