I busted out of the $1500 NLHE on the third hand back from the first break yesterday. Just never really got anything going despite having an incredible table draw. I slipped to 2025 from the 4500 starting stack after just losing several small pots and then the fatal hand came up. A guy who'd limped a lot limped up front, Alex Bolotin limped the cutoff, and I have a pretty trivial shove for 1800 at 75/150 with As9c. First guy folded and Alex pressed call with red sixes. I didn't come near the final board of Th4h2sQdJs.

Afterwards, I met my friend Nate and a friend of his named Bill and we headed over to the MGM pool to get some sun and have some drinks.

In an hour I'll be in action in the final preliminary event of the 2009 WSOP, the $5000 shorthanded affair. I made a pretty deep run in this one last year, and I see no better time than now to book my first NLHE cash of this year's series.

As I write this I'm laid over at Chicago-Midwest awaiting my connection back to Vegas. My sister's wedding was just perfect. I arrived back Thursday night. I hadda go to the Apple Store to get my phone fixed, and afterwards my Mom and I grabbed some dinner at PF Chang's. On Friday I woke up and lounged around for a little while and then got ready for the rehearsal dinner later that night. The rehearsal went smoothly and then we headed over to a friend of Ben's family who was nice enough to host the dinner for us. Some 80 people came out and we enjoyed a barbecue catered meal whilst putting away 2 kegs of beer. 

Saturday I woke up around noon and hadda immediately get ready to go get pictures done. Hung out with the groomsmen for a while and then the ceremony started. It was really cool to see how happy my sister was during the ceremony. In turn, I'm obviously extremely happy. I almost cried. Ben kicks ass, and I couldn't be happier for them.

The real fun would start soon after at the reception. My sis found this awesome loft in downtown Birmingham. Collectively, we put away like 35 cases of beer and 30 bottles of wine and enjoyed some really good food and dancing. It was great to see a bunch of old faces and I really appreciated everyone coming out. After the reception, we continued the party at my favorite bar in Birmingham, Nana Funks.

Man, this sucks. I busted the $2500 Omaha 8 just after dinner yesterday on day 2 in 81st place with 45 paying. This may've been the single most frustrating day of tournament poker of the summer as far as the cards not cooperating. God I hate writing sentences like that and sounding like every other bad beat story telling fish in Vegas.

I had what had to be one of the best tables in the room with one of the most clear marks I've had at the table all summer long. The European had absolutely no clue how to play Omaha H/L and was paying off every single bet with just laughable holdings. One time the dude ran off redic to quarter to me in this pot then after dragging 3/4 of the chips promptly told me how I made a bad bet on the end (which was untrue). For the first time in a long time I opened my mouth and told him in no uncertain terms to shut the fuck up. I was in the BB in said limped pot with Ks8h5c2s and four ways we took Kd9s5s. I led out and only the fish called. Turn offsuit 6. Check-Check. River 7 giving me a straight to the 9 and an emergency 8-7-6-5-2 low. Betting top pair with an emergency low would be profitable against this guy, so clearly I bet, he called and somehow he showed up with AJ85 without spades (lol) to quarter me with a slightly better emergency low and the same straight.

There were two other pots where I missed the world draw before the fatal hand after dinner: