The whole day was weird. In the first 35 minutes, I got off to a good start. I had 88, got 3-bet pre, and flopped the set in a 3-way pot. But one player mucked immediately postflop, and the original 3-bettor tossed it immediately to a check-raise on a Q87, two-diamond board, so he also bricked. That would turn out to be representative of the day. Then I had AA vs JJ, and the guy paid me off all the way despite a Q on the flop. I was up to 63k immediately (from 50k starting).

However, from there it was a struggle.

I got dealt lots and lots of pairs. Big, small, medium, I think I had every possible pair except 33, 99, and JJ. I had 55/66/77 a number of times. I had TT a number of times. I counted 4 AA, 3 KK, 4 QQ. You would think I would be finishing with a huge stack, especially given that I never ran into a set or two pair with any of those hands. Oh, and I also flopped four sets throughout the day, including KKK.

But no.

Sadly, nobody had anything when I had those big hands. Sometimes they all folded around when I raised pre. Sometimes they folded immediately on the flop. One QQ overpair I had to fold the river in a fairly big pot when a guy fired out big (but not suspiciously big) when the flush card hit the river, after appearing to chase the flush the whole way. Another time, I ended up in the crappy situation of a preflop allin of QQ vs AA, where I couldn't fold due to the AA having only 17k in the final hour. Those were the only two I lost with the big pairs and set hands, but everything else got me almost no action.

I had many straight draws, flush draws, and backdoor draws, none of which got there.

Early on, I also had a brutal situation of a K high flush versus the A high, but fortunately the guy just check/called down because he nonsensically feared me having a full house on a 6s5s5c4s3d board.

In case you think I was just playing with guys who were reading me like a book, think again. I could tell that the table was mostly recreational players. These were not bad recs, but they were recs. However, nobody was outright bad, and for the most part nobody was calling off lots of chips with weak holdings (even the guy who called off with JJ at the beginning kept saying he was regretting it). So this was a tough table to chip up. Everyone was playing cautious.

My assumption of a lot of rec players was validated when several players asked me for help bagging their chips at the end. These also weren't likely online players, as most at the table were my age or older. This was really a table full of rec players. Again, not horrible rec players, and definitely not spewy rec players, but rec players nonetheless.

Of course, seeing that, I tried stealing blinds/antes more often, but I kept getting cold callers in late positions or the blinds, and then inevitably people would hit something when I wouldn't.

My hands were completely out of sync with everyone else's. When I had something, nobody did. When I had nothing (or something mediocre), they had something good and didn't go anywhere.

There was little three-betting to my left. I was rarely run off any hands preflop.

This was the type of table makeup that I typically do well against, but not yesterday.

The same thing happened last year on Day 1, but I finished even worse this year. Last year at least I finished above starting stack. I finished 60% of starting stack this year, at near my all-time low for the day. I was between 50k and 65k for almost the entire day, only to fall in the last hour, mostly thanks to that QQ < AA hand.

We return Tuesday at 11am for Day 2. Here are my opponents:

Paolo Cusinato Sudbury, , CA 42,200 Amazon / 448 / 1
Kenneth Goldman LAS VEGAS, NV, US 16,300 Amazon / 448 / 2
Ki Lee LAKEWOOD, CA, US 57,000 Amazon / 448 / 3
Camilo Manrique CARACAS, , VE 79,500 Amazon / 448 / 4
Robert Hover WHITMAN, MA, US 85,500 Amazon / 448 / 5
Marc Boyko Richmond, VA, US 48,300 Amazon / 448 / 6
John Kubeck Huntington Beach, CA, US 22,200 Amazon / 448 / 7
Todd Witteles LAS VEGAS, NV, US 29,700 Amazon / 448 / 8
Ardit Kurshumi REVERE, MA, US 39,100 Amazon / 448 / 9

This looks like a good draw.

First off, the biggest stack is 85,500, and the second biggest is 79,500, and the rest are all below 60k, with two others actually shorter than me!

This is pretty amazing, considering that average stack is 66k (75% of Day 1B survived!).

I'm very happy to see this, because it means I won't be running into big stacked guys trying to take shots at me. When you have a short-but-not-crippled stack like I do, good big stack players tend to try to bully, as you have enough chips not to go all-in out of desperation, but also not enough to damage them. None of these people have enough chips to really bully at this point.

Furthermore, I haven't looked anyone up yet, but I do not recognize any of these names.

I may have a table full of recs again, so I might just have a second life here, if I can just get some cards or at least get my opponents to miss.