Safe and Sound in Vegas - Busto from 1st Event

It was a long drive yesterday but I made it with no problem. The condo is nice, I finally got the internet working, I played some basketball this morning and then headed over for my first event. It started off up and down. I started off hot and then got AA cracked by TT in one of the earlier levels, and was then forced into playing pretty nitty but I was able to maintain a 20-30 BB stack up until the dinner break.

I came back from dinner with just over an 11k stack and got moved to a pretty gross table - Eric Basebaldy Baldwin was directly on my left, Nick Binger, some other tourney grinder who I recognized, and 2 other guys I didn't recognize but they knew everyone else; blinds 200/400 with a 50 ante. Within the first orbit a guy with 6k jammed from the button, I woke up with AA in the SB, hollywooded a little to try and get Eric to call too and the buttons 85o cracked my AA. An orbit or so later and I was down to 4k which was just 10 BBs when a very loose CO opened and the guy who cracked me then 3-bet. I woke up with AJs in the SB and knew I was ahead of the CO, thought I might be ahead of the 3-bettor and with 2k in dead money in the pot, I only needed like 35-40% equity for the shove to be good. So I figured he had air enough that a gamble was ok in that spot and unfortunately ran into his AA.

GG me.

Even though I never like to lose, I actually feel really good though. I was able to chip up without showdowns basically all night; the showdowns I did get in I was a huge favorite and got bad beat; so I feel like my patience, timing, range reading, determining fold equity are all really sharp. The fact that I had AA twice all-in preflop in a tourney as an 80% favorite; lost them both; AND still had a shot to keep myself in the tourney is just a really good sign I think. If I get a decent streak of run good it could be a scary series.

I will be playing the $1500 PL tourney tomorrow. White Table 44 Seat 9 if anyone wants to say hey.