Day 2 of the WSOP Main Event started with one very simple objective: survive.

I came into the day with 39,500 chips, which wasn’t exactly where I wanted to be after Day 1. I wasn’t dead, but I didn’t have a lot of room to get creative either. The plan wasn’t to come in firing every bullet in the chamber. I needed to grind, pick up small pots, avoid unnecessary disasters, and hopefully find a few spots where the cards cooperated.

In the Main Event, that sounds simple.

It never is.

By the end of the day, I’d been up, down, nearly out, back up again, and involved in some of the strangest hands I’ve played in a long time. Somehow, after starting with 39,500, I finished with 221,000.

I wanted 200,000.

Mission accomplished.

Starting the Day With a Short Stack and a Simple Plan

I felt good coming into the Horseshoe in Las Vegas. I was rested, and after a rough Day 1, I was ready for a grindy kind of day.

My strategy was basically to get chips without forcing anything.

With my stack, I couldn’t afford to get into too many huge pots unless I had a very good reason. I needed to pick up what I could, get lucky a few times, find cards in the right spots, and hopefully hold when I got the best of it.

I looked at my table draw before play started. I knew the player directly to my left, and unfortunately for me, he was very good and very accomplished. I think he had just finished third in a $100K event.

Everybody else was mostly unknown to me.

That’s actually a good thing in the Main Event. You generally don’t want to look around your table and recognize everybody.

The goal for the day was ambitious considering where I was starting: bag 200,000.

That would be a really good day.

I just needed to figure out how to get there.

Quads on the First Hand Is a Pretty Good Start

The first hand of the day definitely helped.

I woke up with eight-three of spades in the big blind. There was a min-raise, I called, and the flop came three-three-deuce.

That’ll work.

I ended up making quads and getting three streets of value. Just like that, I was up to around 65,000.

It was the biggest pot I had won in the entire tournament to that point.

Trips and quads on the first hand of Day 2?

I’ll take it.

For a moment, it felt like maybe this was going to be one of those days where everything finally went my way.

Poker corrected that thought pretty quickly.

From Nearly 90K Back Down to 30K

A little later, I got ace-queen in against pocket nines.

A queen came on the turn, putting me in the lead. If the hand held, I was going to have around 90,000 chips.

That would have been beautiful.

Then a nine came on the river.

Back down to around 30,000.

Welcome to the Main Event.

That was basically the theme of the early part of my day. I’d win a few, lose a few, get close to building something, and then get knocked back down.

There was another hand on a nine-three-deuce board with hearts where I had a pair and initially didn’t feel like I was ever going to fold the flop. Then I got raised, there was more action, and suddenly my hand went from looking pretty good to looking like it might be the final hand of my tournament.

I got out of the way.

I never saw the cards, so I can’t prove I was right, but I’m pretty sure I was. There was almost no chance one pair was good by the time all the action developed.

Sometimes surviving the WSOP Main Event isn’t about the chips you win.

It’s about the chips you don’t lose.

The Ace-Ten Debate and Putting Your Tournament Life on the Line

One of the things I love about tournament poker is how one hand can turn into a full debate on the rail.

We had a whole conversation about ace-ten and whether it was a jam, a fold, an overjam, or something else entirely.

My position was pretty simple. If the action folded to me in the right spot, I was willing to jam. But I wasn’t looking to overjam after somebody else had already moved all in.

There’s a big difference.

I’m also not excited about putting my entire Main Event life on the line with ace-ten when I don’t have to.

Could you be ahead? Sure.

Could you double up? Absolutely.

Could you also be standing in the hallway five minutes later wondering why you decided ace-ten was the hand you wanted to die with?

Yep.

The Main Event creates those decisions constantly. You’re trying to accumulate chips, but tournament life matters. You have to know when aggression makes sense and when you’re just talking yourself into gambling.

After the first level, I had started with 39,500 and was sitting with 39,200.

Almost exactly the same stack.

The difference was I felt like I could have been broke twice.

I was very fortunate to still be there.

The blinds kept going up, and my stack kept staying the same.

Not exactly the dream, but I was still battling.

The Grim Reaper Shows Up at My Table

At some point, poker’s Grim Reaper came wandering over.

That’s always comforting.

He started talking about who he was there for, and I immediately made it clear that it wasn’t me. He could go find Jeff Platt. He could find somebody else. Anybody else.

We eventually made a deal.

Nothing was going to happen to me.

I liked that deal.

Of course, the Grim Reaper then reminded me about the time I lost a full house to a bigger full house. I told him everybody would have gone broke in that spot.

His response was basically that the other guy didn’t.

Fair point.

Still, he promised I’d make Day 7. We agreed we’d see each other at the final table.

When the Grim Reaper tells you you’re going to be fine, I think you have to take that as a positive sign.

At least that’s what I told myself.

Finally Finding Some Traction

By the second break, I had climbed to around 73,000 or 75,000.

After sitting around 40,000 for the first two levels, I felt rich.

That level was exactly what I needed. I didn’t get involved in too many massive spots. I just picked up chips, stayed out of trouble, and finally started moving in the right direction.

The next goal was 100,000 to 110,000 by dinner.

Then I played one of the most absurd hands of my tournament.

A player with around 35,000 made it 10,000. I had two kings and decided to flat, hoping the button might do something silly behind me.

The flop came ace-jack-ten.

Not ideal.

My opponent moved all in, and I called.

A queen came on the turn.

I would have had around 110,000 if I won that pot.

Instead, we chopped.

Better than losing, obviously. He could have caught a jack and beaten me. But when you’re already mentally counting the chips from a double-up, chopping the pot isn’t exactly exciting.

Still, I was alive.

And more importantly, it was time for ice cream.

The Ice Cream Dance and the Climb Toward 140K

I love ice cream way too much.

If I get over 100,000 chips, I’m getting ice cream. Those are the rules.

And yes, there is an ice cream dance.

Don’t judge me.

After the slow start, I finally got some real traction and climbed close to 140,000, which was around the average stack.

The funny thing was I wasn’t getting huge premium hands.

I had queen-deuce and flopped a queen and a deuce. I found spots with hands that didn’t look like much preflop but turned into something useful.

That’s how tournament poker works sometimes. Everybody waits for aces and kings, but a lot of your day is about what happens with the ugly hands.

Of course, I also four-bet shoved king-three.

That’s never fun in the Main Event.

But I felt like the guy was bluffing.

Sometimes you have to trust what you’re seeing.

My Table Completely Changed

The table dynamics shifted dramatically as the day went on.

Early, the table was calm and passive. If I’d had a big stack, it would have been a dream. The problem was I only had around 40,000 chips, so I couldn’t really take advantage of it.

I had to sit there and be patient.

Then, once I finally had chips, everybody decided to wake up.

Suddenly, players were three-betting and four-betting all over the place.

Now I had a stack I could use, but the table had become much more aggressive.

That’s poker.

The conditions you want are never guaranteed to still be there when you’re finally ready to take advantage of them.

The player on my left had already made a couple of huge bluffs, and I wasn’t particularly interested in getting into some massive ego battle with him in the Main Event.

I wanted to pick my spots.

I still had the 200,000 goal in mind.

Sure, 400,000 would have been better.

But one goal at a time.

Five Hands Left and the Goal Was Already Beaten

With five hands left in the day, I looked down at my stack.

235,000.

I had said I’d be happy if I got out of the day with 200,000.

I was already above it.

The day had been a complete roller coaster. I started with 39,500, got up to around 70,000, fell all the way back to around 20,000 at one point, and then fought my way back.

All I needed was for nothing tragic to happen in the final five hands.

Thankfully, nothing did.

I bagged 221,000.

From 39,500 to 221,000.

I’ll take that every single time.

Day 3 Is When the Main Event Really Starts

Day 2 was about survival.

Day 3 is different.

That’s when all the starting flights come together. The tournament starts to feel like one tournament. The money bubble starts getting closer, and positioning becomes incredibly important.

My next number is 800,000.

That might sound aggressive, but I always like to have a number in mind.

I expect around 450,000 to be average near the money bubble. I don’t want to arrive there with an average stack if I can help it. I want to be above average so I can put pressure on people who are just trying to cash.

The bubble is where a big stack can really go to work.

Of course, poker doesn’t care about my plan.

I’ll have to see what the table looks like, how the day starts, and what opportunities are available. Then I’ll reassess.

But for now, 800,000 sounds like a good number.

So that’s the goal.

The Routine That Keeps Me Going

One thing I’ve learned over the years is that the WSOP Main Event isn’t just about playing poker.

It’s an endurance contest.

I’m 50 years old now. I don’t have the same energy tank I had when I was younger, so I have to manage it.

I like to eat a big breakfast and come into the tournament a little later than everybody else. I might be slightly groggy early while everyone else is fresh, but dinner is where I try to gain an edge.

A lot of players go eat a huge meal.

I keep it light.

Chicken and broccoli.

That way, when we come back from dinner, I’m ready to go. I’m not sitting there in a food coma trying to survive the last few levels.

I’ve been doing that for a long time.

At the end of the night, I go back, drink some hot chocolate, let that put me to sleep, and try to do it all over again the next day.

We Didn’t Give Up

Looking back at Day 2, the biggest thing I’m happy about is that I never gave up.

I had rough runouts.

I got knocked back down.

I was short.

The table got more aggressive.

People tried to bluff me. That didn’t work.

People called me with king-high. That didn’t work either.

I adjusted, got a little more aggressive when I needed to, and kept fighting.

That’s the Main Event.

You can’t control the river. You can’t control when somebody wakes up with a hand. You can’t control whether your table is passive for two hours and then suddenly turns into a three-bet war.

You can control whether you keep making decisions.

You can control whether you stay patient.

You can control whether you keep battling after falling from 70,000 to 20,000.

I started the day with 39,500 chips and a plan to survive.

I ended it with 221,000 and a chance to do some real damage.

Now I need to do it again.

Day 3 is when this thing really starts.