$1k day 2

Busted out in 143rd last night (3844 entrants) for a cash of $3182. Most of the hands I was involved in weren't very interesting, but I'll summarize the main ones.

Early on I won a nice pot when utg+1 raised, I reraised with aces from utg+2, utg+1 shipped 15 bbs with 88, and my aces held. A few hands later, I raised in EP with AQo (Q of hearts), BB flatted, flop was 3 low hearts, he checked, I bet, he called. Turn was K of hearts, we both checked, river was blank and he led out 1/2-2/3 pot and I just called. He showed 73hh, so he flopped the flush, but I turned a higher one. I guess I played it pretty passively and might have been able to get another bet from him at some point -- maybe with a little raise on the river. Not sure what I do if he ships though.

Then I got moved to a pretty aggressive table with a few good players. I lost a decent pot when I opened 44 from CO at 600/1200 (100 ante), button shipped around 13k with A2s, I called and he hit an ace. I lost a bigger pot a little later when an aggro player on button shipped 15 bbs with T8o, I called BB with A8o, and he hit a flush. At this point I was down to < 10 bbs, but fortunately I ran well and won AJ > JJ and K8s > 77 allin preflop to get up over 30 bbs.

Finally, at 1500/3000 400 ante hijack who started the hand with 53k opened to 10k (an unusually large open, since standard is usually around 2-2.5x). I had 55k in the small blind and shipped with QQ, and he snap-called me with KJs. Unfortunately he turned a flush, and I was basically eliminated. His line was a little weird -- raising to 3.3x and calling a shove here -- but it probably wasn't so bad, since KJs is a big hand in an MTT with < 20 bbs.

A few more amusing things from the day didn't involve hands I played. At my first table, before the money bubble broke, this one guy (Player A) couldn't stop blabbing on about all his big laydowns and how he was trying to sneak into the money. We were about 100 ppl from the money bubble and he was pretty short, and he was bragging about his laydowns with 66/AJs/etc. One hand he opened button with like 12 bbs, BB shipped then he tanked and folded claiming he had AQo, and BB showed A8o. Then around the bubble he kept stalling by asking everyone at the table for their chip counts, etc. Finally someone called a clock on him (player B), causing player A to flip, saying he had made tons of huge laydowns and had a right to think them over. Player B (who I totally agree with) told him he was being really unreasonable, taking 3 minutes for every decision, and making it impossible for anyone else at the table to have a chance to win the tourney. Player A said to player B "Well, you have no chance of winning the tournament anyway, because you have bad karma!" Lol. Anyway, Player A's strategy "worked" I suppose, as he ended up making the money with literally 1/2 a BB left.

Finally after I busted, I had to wait in this huge line to receive my payout. Next to me was this guy in his 50's or 60's with some sort of southern accent. For some reason, he was trying to convince me that AA was only a 52% favorite vs. a random hand. I asked him if he meant allin preflop or something else, and he blabbered on about something incoherent. I told him it was at least a 76% favorite vs. any hand allin preflop, and he told me that I could really learn a lot by checking out Andy Bloch and Chris Ferguson's "computer modeling" that proved otherwise. He said some other stuff, like how 32 offsuit is only a 3-2 underdog vs aces or something, and how Andy Bloch was an MIT graduate so I could really learn a lot from his work! I thought about mentioning my background and my research, but decided it wasn't worth it with this nutcase so I just said "Very interesting, I'll have to check it out!"