My second bracelet event lasted a bit longer than the first but suffered a similar arc and ultimate result. Very soft table (although it did get progressively tougher with each elimination) and I pretty much cruised from 4500 to 9k.
Turning point was after I raise aces utg, the big blind defends playing 50k. That's not a typo: he had already eliminated ten people and had more than half the chips at the table having stuck to a strategy of playing almost every hand. He check called two streets on a jack high board and then led the river (an innocuous looking 3). I called to be shown a rivered set. He said he was intending to bluff the river (and I obviously intended to call) so if he doesn't ping his 2 outer I have 12k instead of 6k.
After that I didn't win a single pot. I was card dead for the last level before antes so ended up folding every hand for an hour. As I tweeted at the time, ten handed poker with no antes and that kind of sex is a bit like 80 year olds having sex: you can try to be creative but it probably won't end well. You have to stay disciplined in these spots and continue to play optimally and hope that it will ultimately be rewarded with the double up.
I was hoping my apparent tightness folding 83o for an hour would translate into fold equity on my reshoves once the antes started. Two hands into the antes I took an obvious reshove spot after the guy playing nearly every hand opened. Unfortunately my Aj in the cutoff ran into Ak on the button and didn't get there.
In Sunday's 1k I again chipped up early until I lost a big one with top 2 on the flop versus bottom set. I rebuilt but then lost a flip with tens v a shorty kq. That left me short. I survived for a few hours by shipping slightly more than once an orbit and not getting called. When I finally did get called I was in a good spot to get right back into it if my kq could hold against kt. Unfortunately it couldn't.
I was feeling way too sorry for myself the following morning for it to be a good idea to play the $2500 so I skipped it. Will therefore be refunding everyone that bought a piece of my side event action that portion (including markup obv). I also skipped the 5k on similar grounds so at least my side event investors can be assured they will be getting over half their money back. Hopefully more if I can get a result in the last tournament in the package, Friday's $1500, which I will definitely play.
I normally shake these things off pretty quickly so the fact I wasn't back to my usual chipper self when I got up the next morning is noteworthy. On the positive side, I am at least lasting progressively longer each time and the beats are getting progressively less improbable (one outer in the first event, two outer in the second and three outer in the third) so who knows by the end I might even get past a bubble before losing a flip. I'm very happy with how I'm playing, in particular I think I am working out opponent tendencies very quickly and picking up on physical stuff, so even if I don't manage to get a result in the fast structured events, I will be confident going into the best structured event in the world, the WSOP main event.
After busting the 1k I late regged a mega sat to find myself sitting beside a very attractive Polish American lady and across the table from a more scowly Daragh Davey. After she lost a pot to Daragh she made the whole table laugh by announcing "I know you're trying to be all serious but I just want to buy you ice cream or something cos you look so sad".
Hopefully the Firm (who as Big Mick G tweeted run the risk of being renamed the Soft if we keep bricking) will have something more to smile about than ice cream by the time the main event kicks off at the end of the week. Collectively we are something like 0/20 so far in Vegas this year so it would nice to break the sequence of bricks before the main.
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