After busting out of the $2,500 NL event on Friday June 5th, I played my first single-table of the trip in the Brasilia Room, a $1,030-buyin that paid out 10K in chips to one winner. We were 4- or 5-handed (and I had recouped $600 of the $1,030 from last longer bets) when I got a call from my brother in New York, who told me that our father was undergoing “emergency open heart surgery” to treat what we later found out was an aortic dissection.

The old man was visiting his cardiologist, socially, at the doctor’s house near Poughkeepsie, NY and had started to feel chest pain. He resisted going to the hospital for an hour or two before finally acceding to the doctor’s suggestion, and they drove to the Vassar Brothers Medical Center.

Despite the news, I believe I kept my focus fairly well, but I wound up taking third in the satellite after some unfortunate hands. A little while later, I met my friend Cory during his dinner break from the $2,500 (we made it to and from Fix, across the highway at the Bellagio, in perfect time), and during the meal I booked an 11:45PM Jet Blue flight to JFK.

When I got to New York City around 8AM on Saturday, I stopped at what was easily the shittiest Hertz outlet I’ve ever been to. The first car they tried to give me appeared to be stained with blood on the upholstery of the left door and the brakes made weird loud noises. The word I got was that my father had made it through surgery but it was still unknown whether or not he had a stroke during the procedure. I picked up my brother in Manhattan and we made the two-hour drive to Poughkeepsie, exhausted and uncertain.

When we got there, the nurse told us that our father seemed to be fine, was vaguely cognizant of our presence and could verbally identify the name of his cardiologist friend. I spent the night at the Holiday Inn Express while my brother visited an ex-girlfriend who lived nearby. By the next day, the anesthesia had worn off to the point where my father could converse with us, and he seemed in good enough shape that I felt comfortable leaving him to recover and my brother to be the man on the scene. I was back in Vegas by 10PM on Sunday.

***

Picking up where I left off in the last blog, the $2K NL tournament on June 4th was the only event where I built a stack and sustained it for a while. I took an early hit with AK vs KK and was down to less than half my starting stack after getting moved to a new table early in the second level.  I doubled up on the last hand before the first break to 6K and pumped up to about 15K when it was time for dinner break. We ate at Pasta Mia, a serviceable, but far from great, Italian spot located in a strip mall a few blocks west on Flamingo.

I won a coinflip after dinner to get my stack somewhere in the 22-25K range and busted my stack shortly after with KQ vs AQ on a Q-high board in a 50K+ pot. I may have overplayed it.

On Monday, just after returning from the NYC hospital visit, I played the $2,500 6-handed event, which was basically the coolest tournament I had played yet. I nearly doubled my first stack during the first two levels, then lost it all back and more in level three after a series of coolers and lame spots. Shortly after the second break and getting moved to a new table, I busted my short stack to Andy Black.

I phoned it in for Tuesday’ $1,500 pot-limit hold ‘em event. Not sure why, I like PLHE tournaments. After having my stack crippled at the 25/50 level to 150 chips (getting it in with QT on an KQT board in a spot where bottom-two is almost never good), I tripled-up with A7s to get me to around 550 chips. Then, five people limped when it was my big blind, and I looked down at A6 and decided to “pot it” to 350.

While two of the limpers were making their decision, a middle-aged man in the three-seat with a heavy southern accent said, “You’re fi’in to get picked off” in a strangely menacing way. Slightly taken aback, I just kind of smiled and asked, “Is that a threat?” The British guy on my let out a laugh. The man with the drawl responded without seeming to miss a beat, “It’s an agreement.” He was one of the two limpers who called my allin, and he busted me with KJ on a K77-xx board.

I was looking forward to today’s event, the $1,500 shootout that was capped at a 1,000 players. In order to make the final table, you have to win two consecutive STTs on consecutive days (and the final table on the third). But before the first orbit was complete, I was making the long walk back to the parking lot. My table was great, very soft in my relatively limited observation with the exception of a couple of tough players and a “maybe” or two. The button started in the 10-seat and it was in the 7- or 8-seat when my bustout hand took place:

I was in the 1-seat and my neighbor in the 10-seat, a young-looking Asian guy who was mostly out of my line of site and whom I didn’t have a read on, opened at 25/50 to 225. Some random guy two to my left (we’ll call him “Randy”), who seemed like one of the softest spots at the table, had 225 in his hand, telegraphing his decision to call. I made it 725 with kings and when the man in between us, a CPA who has lived in Vegas for 30+ years, folded, Randy briefly rethought his decision but eventually reached back into his stack and called the 725 cold. Then, the small blind called the 725 cold! The original raiser called the 500 and with the pot at 2950, we saw a flop of 974 with two clubs. I had the Kc.

The SB and the Asian dude checked, and I bet 1800 of my remaining 3400-chip stack (I started the hand with 4125). This was actually a pretty big mistake in bet-sizing that I only recognized after I had dropped the chips in the middle. 1200-1500 would be way better here. Randy thought for a limited amount of time and went allin. The small blind pretended to agonize for several seconds but folded. The Asian guy didn’t labor over the act for too long, but he showed his cards in frustration to Andy Black on his right before mucking. I called, and Randy revealed QcJc for an 8-out flush draw. He turned the flush.

I didn’t hit my king-high flush draw, and, after taking my first legitimately bad beat of the 2009 WSOP, I made the way back to my car. Not long after, I talked to my father, who is recovering at the same hospital, for the first time since I left the East Coast and by his own account, he is “bored and miserable but otherwise fine.”