Since last we spoke Pt. 9 WSOP 2018 was interesting 2/5ish?
Day 2 of the 10K PLO was about staying alive for the first 9 hours or so of play. I managed to tread water with essentially the same stack I began the afternoon with until shortly after we made the money, then I began stringing together hands, and wound up bagging 5th in chips after 10x-ing my stack. There were 3 memorable moments on this day
1 - Going from 400k to 600k once ITM, flopping KK vs Joe Hachem's AA on AKK - Truly disgusting obviously. The sickest part was Hachem folded Aces full earlier in the tournament after being raised by what he believed to be quads, but wound up mucking the best hand. Poker can be so nasty that way sometimes. In any case he handled it well, and I respected the composure.
2 - Scotty Nguyen played some nice PLO, at an unreasonable speed, cracking one-liners the whole time. At one point he showed me a text to his wife "1 million chips, we rich Baby". 10 minutes later I beat him out of a medium sized pot, and he snap starts trolling his girl "Lost a big hand. Busted." He leans into me and starts laughing "She gonna lose her fucking mind!!!"
3 - There are 2 players that I can think of and maybe a few honorable mentions when it comes to people's table presence having an affect on me, and they're all the old school Rep Porter types, I don't know why exactly. In any case, I'm playing a hand with Rep who is sitting to my direct right, and I've just made a big bet into him on the river. He does his usual sizing me up, which again, is like whatever when anybody else does it, but for some reason the fucking grizzly bear heat of this guy just radiates off of him, penetrating my being every time, and I feel like a Hostess cupcake. He leans into my ear and whispers "Whatcha gaaaaaaaaaaahht" it was so quiet and borderline sexual, coupled with his focused gaze, I about lost my shit and died laughing, but somehow managed composure.
The third day was challenging, but fun. I cherished being table-mates with my extemporaneous friend Anson Tsang. We've begun a tradition of being sat next to one another in these things, and commemorate the occasion via the wonderful roaming photo staff now, annually. There were multiple kind faces and heroes dispersed throughout the remainder of the field including a close friend of mine named May (Nicholas) Aranda, fellow Chicagoan Scott Bohlman, Richard Lyndaker ( pictured above ), along with PLO's #1 Advocate Joey Ingram
The dynamic of the final two tables relative to the unofficial FT and beyond were drastically polar. We rocked from a very deliberate and pot control type dynamic, to one that was legit the most reckless, high variance, bloodbath I've ever witnessed in this format, for these stakes - It pretty much resembled what people who dabble in PLO assume PLO looks like from a volatility standpoint.
Fun cast of characters seats 1-8: nutsinho, Rep,🎈, Jerry Wong, LuckyGump, Loren Klein, Scott Bohlman, Ryan Hughes. Final 2 tables.
Next chapter will explore the unofficial Final Table, and one of the craziest hands I've been involved in, not so much because of the complexity of the spot, but just the overall weirdness of it all.
<3 Brandon
