The tournament started with 534 players, each paying $2000 for the chance at winning $240,057 and a WSOP bracelet. The tournament will pay to 54 places -- with 54th getting $4,276 and 1st place getting $240,057. We started the tournament with $4000 chips. Immediately I noticed that our table was playing very passive and was a prime target for taking advantage of weak players. For the first few blind rounds, I stayed above tournament average. By round 3 and 4, I started taking some very bad beats -- players hitting 1 and 2 outs against me. At that point, I began to get short stacked, but I remained undaunted and methodically fought my way back.

The table was mostly filled with solid players. The guy to my right, even though he took too long playing his cards was probably the table's most aggressive players. He had me labeled as a very solid player, and openly admitted on numerous occasions that he hated playing against me when I was in the hand. Having an aggressive player to my right is perfect for a tight player like me. I can fold when I need to, and trap him when I make a big hand. But the opposite can happen also.

In one hand, I flopped top two pair against him. As I expected, he bet into me. Instead of raising here, I decided to raise the turn -- to collect more money on the large bet. He called, knowing that he had a very reasonable low draw. He made his low on the river, but he didn't notice that he had made a straight against me. Therefore, on the river, I bet and he merely called. He gave me the speech about knowing he was screwed when I raised the turn. But at first he thought we were going to split the pot; but one of the other players pointed out that he riverred a straight and didn't even know it (riverred a wheel in fact). So he collected the entire pot, and I became even shorter stacked.

But it didn't take long before I did the same thing to him. In a hand shortly thereafter, I caught a runner-runner straight on him to take back some of my chips. Thereafter, he was very cautions when playing against me because he knew I would defend my big blind, and unless he out flopped me, he knew at best he was going to get 1/2 the pot, and very often...nothing at all.

During level-6 "Frankie Flowers" came to the table. Frankie came sporting a huge chip stack and two racks of small denomination chips. Frankie was probably one of the top 5 chip leaders at the time. Frankie was from New York, and had the very boisterous and outgoing New York type-A personality. Based on the two racks of small chips, I knew Frankie would be both our table's action player, and my personal ATM. If you look at the chart below tracking my chip count, you can see once Frankie came to the table, my chip stack doubled on two successive blind rounds. At one point, we had Frankie down to 2000 chips, but he fought his way back to 50000 chips right before the break (he's a VERY lucky guy). After winning a dozen pots from Frankie, he figured out that I would defend my blind against him, and call him all the way to the river -- even with a single mid pair. Frankie mostly quit raising my blind -- thereafter either folding pre-flop, or limping on my big blind.

But Frankie brought ACTION to the table -- and that was important to me to capitalize on a HUGE payday. On one such hand, I was dealt A377 suited.

The flop: 27T - Rainbow. There was lots of action on this flop with a bet, raise -- with me in 2nd-to-last position with my set and nut low draw.

The turn: 27TQ - Rainbow (no flush possible). Again, there was lots of action on this flop with a bet, and a raise from the aggressive player to my right. Again, I simply called -- continuing to slow play my set and nut low draw.

The river: 27TQ6 - Rainbow. Now is when I spring into action. Player-1 (seat-10) bets, the aggressive player to my right raises, and now I 3-bet. I get 3 callers. The aggressive player to my right says -- he knows I'm not raising with a bare nut low but can't figure out what I've got. He's got top two pair himself, and is compelled to call. I turn over the bad news for the set and nut low -- to claim 2/3 of the pot (two other players had the nut low). The aggressive player mucked his cards. Other players began to comment on my slow play -- never raising once until the river. I asked them: "why would I raise when I've got all the aggressive players generating the action for me?" I catapulted to 37400 chips after this hand.

Five minutes later, I lost 9000 of those chips in the following hand.

I'm dealt AA39 single suited. The action is folded to me and I raise. Of course Frankie is in this pot, but so is the player to his left.

The flop: AQ9 - Rainbow. I flop top set of aces. Both players check, and I bet. Frankie calls, and the player to his right check-raises me. I immediately 3-bet him and give him such a wicked stair down that he winces and asks me to quit staring at him in such an uncomfortable manner. Frankie wisely folds -- knowing exactly what I have in my hand.

The turn: AQ99. I have the nut full house. Seat-10 checks and calls my bet.

The river: AQ99Q. I still have the nut full house. Seat-10 bets -- usually an indication of quads. But he's new to our table and is a really weak player, so it's really hard to know if he has quads or just a Q9 or QA underboat. So instead of simply calling, I raise him to make sure. He raises me back, but what can I do? If he really caught a 1-outter against me, I have to pay it off in this case. I pay it off, and he turns over QQ34 -- for quads, and scoops a 20000 chip pot. If I had won that pot, I would have had nearly 60000 chips -- and probably would have been an overwhelming chip leader in the tournament.

Through the remainder of the night (two more blind rounds), I fought my way back. As players got knocked out, my chip stack fluctuated up and down. I got down to 18000 chips, but thanks to Frankie, came back to 31000 before the end of the night.

Day-2 starts at 2PM, and I have 4000 chips above the tournament average. There are 78 players left, meaning that we are 24 people away from the money.

The following figure, charts my progress through the blind rounds.