After my unpleasant exit on Friday I decided to skip the $1,500 event on Saturday because it was looking like a big sellout again and I don’t like those large fields – nahh, I am not going to fool you. When I realized I had not yet bought my ticket for this event I went to the cashier, saw an endless line of players trying to buy into that one and had simply no idea of waiting 4+ hours for that event. 

The Bellagio is running it’s "Bellagio cup" series right now and I decided to go there, they had scheduled a $5,000 event for this saturday. I bought myself in and was trying to take my seat at 1 p.m. when I got informed that it has been re-scheduled to 2 p.m. so I went to local "Noodles" and had a fantastic lunch there. When I got back shortly before 2 I was informed by the waiting dealers that I am probably "on the final table already" as there have been only 8 entries so far. When the tourney finally started it have been 23 and it filled up to 37 over the course of the following 3 hours (they allowed for such late entries). I was playing good and builded a stack before I ran into a draw holding top two and the draw arrived so I was below average after 4 hours of play (60 minutes levels). With 15 players left (5 in the money) I found  under the gun, raised and was called by Paul Testud only – the flop looked harmless with so I went all-in but he smiled and called, opening pocket for flopped quads. The field in this tournament was strong as one can expect, on my first table have been Josh Arie, Roland de Wolfe and Michael "TheGrinder" – TheGrinder impressed me the most of all, I had never really played with the guy before and he was strong force on the table. He has fantastic reads, plays fearless and reckless and did build a large stack which eventually vanished when he got very unlucky in three hands in a row (in two he got the money in as a large favorite, in one he flopped two pair with a straiht draw vs. bottom set). I never thought much of the guy so far but honestly he impressed me and showed me there is a whole different, advanced level of play to reach. Thanks for the lesson.

When we have been talking to a dealer, the dealer explained something like "I am more a player than a dealer" and continued with "I have won a bracelet on my own already" – and true it was, the guy won the $2000 limit holdem event in 2003 for $450,000. Wow impressive! Must be shame for the guy dealing to all the clueless people there day-in and day-out. But thats the Bellagio – the best of everything. 

My WSOP appreances on Sunday and Monday ($3,000 NLH and today’s $2,500 6max NLH) have been short, I played not even two hours in each of those. My play was not perfect for whatever reason and I in at least one case I made a huge mistake. Bahhh.

Yesterday I went to the Bellagio to play some cash games and got a seat in a 300/600 seven card stud game which has been build around Morad from Afgahnistan – the guy is an action player, he played in Hamburg very often with me - the guy actually won a bracelet in the 2002′ $5,000 Stud event! Also there was Theo Jorgensen from Denmark, winner of the European Stud Championship, a old time stud pro from NYC whom I know for years and one of the best stud players in the world (in my view), a black guy named Walter Davis who helped me to improve my game over the years – not intenal of course, just watching and playing him made my play 5 levels better. The other 3 players were unknown to me. So not an easy task and I had not expected to play that high I had only like 18k on me, 30 big bets – in a stud game (stud has one more betting round) . So I was shortstacked but anyway, I killed the game. In about 3 hours of play I almost trippled my stack, leaving Theo and others clueless (he stood up in frustration after a while, he also lost aces full to a straigh flush in a huge pot vs one of the guys). The only player I could not win against was Morad, who rivered my two times, otherwise I would have scored 50k. 

So, here in Las Vegas things are going well for Katja and me – Katja is now playing her day 2 in the Razz event, she is 14th in chips with 122 players left. I have no idea why she likes this game so much but she is very good in it. I hope she makes it to the money or even the final table. Probably she will not look this relaxed now while playing: