I opened KQo at 3-6k/500, got called by the tighest guy in the tournament, flop J73r, I c-bet, he called, turn a trey, check, check. River a Q, I bet 47,500 into like 100k, he raised to 100k, I folded, Todd Terry thought he had a set of sevens.  Whatever he had it beat me.  Next hand EP opened, younger guy with a little over 25bb's, I had AQo, 3bet, he tanked and disappointingly shoved, I called, lost a flip to JJ.  Next oribt I open T8dd, called by the button with 12 bigs, Todd Terry in the BB shruggingly calls, flop Q96ddd, sweet, he checks, I bet 27,500 into like 45k, button tank folds, todd makes it 100k we're 400 deep, and due to Todd's range and our history together, I have an easy shove.  I do, he had the nuts, and it's good game me in 26th place, merely because Nick Shulman busted the hand before.  

I have no regrets about how things played out, yet I am super bummed that I didn't go deeper.  That's poker I guess.

Anyways, since then I returned to Cornelius and played a decent amount of online poker since.  I had a frustrating Sunday, three or four cashes, but I built a bunch of stacks that never went anywhere.  The fun one was when I opened ATo, got called in two spots (in the ftp 750k), flop TTx, lose to 99 on a 9 turn and river.  

I was gonna leave Monday, but it was raining.  Then I was gonna leave Tuesday, but I got called in to play in a PokerVT special game, Daniel, Jon Ettinger, Jon Turner, Jason Sommerville, Josh Norris, and me.  Jason was the best in the game, completely owned Jon Ettinger with J9 on a 944dd flop where he weak lead $10 into $24 vs. three of us, check raised Jon on the brick turn, and value bet the Q river, getting paid off by 88.  It was a beautiful play of I know that he knows that I know that he knows that I can't check raise a weak nine so therefore he polarized his range to 4x, 99, the middling set, or air, and since those hands are hard to make Jon paid him off.  Very well played.  

It was interesting making a video of that game.  They're all super good, so my approach was teaching about how to play in really tough games.  The basic jist of what I was doing was capitalizing on their perceived range of me.  Since everybody was playing so aggro, with many three bets going in pre-flop, if they think my range is loose like it usually is during donkaments, they're going to play accordingly, but if my actual range is tighter than their perceived range of me, then I will profit in the long run.  In one hand I opened AA, Daniel 3-bet, and I 4 bet.  Now, they (and Daniel) obviously thought that my 4 betting range would be wider than AA, KK, and AK, but that's honestly how tight it was.  Therefore, when Daniel 3 bet me with QQ, and I 4 bet, and he shoved, he actually was shoving into a range of AA, KK, and AK.  He's 40% vs. that range, but clearly he assumed that my range was wider than what it actually was.  

Turns out he flopped a queen and that was the only really big pot I played.  Shrug.  The 2nd biggest I played was with JThh v. Jason, flop KJT, I check called the flop, turn an ace check, check, and on the brick river I check button-mashed call, which may have been a mistake because he overbet the pot (75 into 50), basically owning me, but since I was assuming that he would have bet a Q on the turn I probably would have called anyways and ended up losing to his AQ.

So, turns out that getting a fire going here in South Carolina is more difficult than starting one in Colorado after a fresh snowfall due to humidity.  I think I finally got it going, but it's been a pita.  I left Cornelius today, rode across North and South Carolina to get here, found the Myrtle Beach State Park, rented a site, pitched a tent in the rain, said, "Hey mate!" to a decent sized toad that apparently wanted to snuggle with me in my tent, diverted him back into the woods, bought some firewood, stuffed it as well as my bags in my dual vented vestibules, and headed off to find food and beer.  

Bar one called "Spencerz" was dead but interesting, I had some food and a beer, got advice on the next place to go, and headed another ten minutes down the road to the Beaver Bar.  Had a beer there, it sucked, and returned north on 17 to bar hop my way back.  Next place was Murphy's Bar South, with Karaoke on Wednesday nights, and it was awesome. 

Something happened that had never happend before.  First, the KJ asked where I was from, I said Southern Californa live in Vegas, she said she grew up in Glendora/Azusa, and well I did too.  I said that I went to Foothill Christian, she said she went to Sandberg, and that's where I played Little League all the way through 3rd grade.  Small world.  

The world got smaller when I returned to the bar after putting in a request, Under the Bridge, when I got chatting with this one dude and I talked about how funny it was that the KJ and I were from the same neighborhood.  He asked where I was from, I told him, then he asked, "What's your name?"

"Bryan, you?"

"What's your last name?"

"Devonshire?  Why?"

He knew me.  Shook my hand this summer during the craziness of the WSOP.  Brett Mehalic, lawyer living in Myrtle Beach, and I walked into his bar.  Pretty hilarious, and made me pretty stoked.  We chatted for a while, had a couple of beers together, and I thoroughly enjoyed the bar.  Thanks Brett, Joe C behind the bar, and everybody else there for an amazing time.  If you're ever in Myrtle Beach, head south past Surfside just before the strand to Murphy's Bar South on the east side of 17, say hi to them for me.  

So, the plan from here it to follow the coast all the way to Dallas.  I want to head down the Atlantic coast to Key West, back along the Gulf Coast through Tampa and the South all the way to Dallas, up to Colorado, and home to Vegas.  I'm going to be really taking my time stopping most days by 4:20pm to play in the later WCOOP and the nightly events, as I'm planning on making live videos for PokerVT covering the fundamentals of every different game type that I'm decent at.  

It felt great to be back in the saddle today, however I had my closest call of the trip today less than 15 miles out of Cornelius.  Headed East on 73 toward Concord, with my mind on other things, following a reasonable distance behind the car in front of me, it abrutly swerved and drove into the right hand ditch.  I looked up, saw the car in front of that car at a dead stop less than 100 feet in front of me.  I locked up both brakes and banked left into oncoming traffic.  I saw that it was immediately clear when I banked and was relived while in a skidding slide, counter steering to the right but still going down, that I had about seven seconds before I was going to to be hit by oncoming traffic.  This was good news only because I honestly thought I was going down and thought that seven seconds would be enough time for the oncoming to see me and stop before running my ass over.  I was gradually falling, not sure if I was going to recover or not when my left side floorboard caught the tarmac with a violent jolt, and fortunately 23 years of riding experience paid off since I was already counter-steering and it popped me back upright.  I zipped back into the stopped traffic, stopped between two cars, and shook my head.  Close.  Very, very, close.  

Anyways, should be back to a frequent blogging schedule since I'll be online a lot and am back to the travels, cheers y'all and talk at ya soon.  If you live anywhere between here and there and have a couch for rent, I'd be glad to take it.  Please lemme know. 

Peace and good luck, 

Devo