I apologize for not updating my site since Aruba. A whirlwind of changes in my life left me blog free - but I am going to back to recap the events until I get caught up.... here is the recap from the Aruba main event. FYI - Aruba (imho) is one of the nicest places on the planet and if you have a chance to get there - DO! The main event of the Aruba WPT saw me seated with Josh Arieh and Martin Fiejo - two very good players. It doesn't take too long before I've worked my little 10,000 stack into about 12,000, while avoiding most of the big fights that seem to be going on now and then. There is another very aggressive player 2 to my right, and the remainder of the table is a mixture of soft, solid, or weak/tight. A couple of hours in, I find myself in late-middle position with KK. The UTG player, a decent player that doesn't appear to have much creativity flat calls. Another caller to my right calls and I make it 2,000. It folds around to the UTG player, who calls my raise while the other limper folds. The flop comes Q84 rainbow, but I'm still trying to figure out why this not so creative player flat called UTG, then called my substantial raise. The blinds were in the 100/200 range. He lead bets into the pot for about 2,000 and my logic says AQ, but my gut tells me there is something wrong. I decide to see where I'm at and raise him 2,000. To my dismay, he flat calls (not a lot of information gained there). The turn comes bringing a 6 (Q84,6), he checks into me and I start to think a bit. If he has AQ, I want to bet for value and not let him draw for free. If he flopped some hidden hand, then I'll have a good chance of getting a free river by betting here since he'll likely want me to keep firing and check raise on the river. I decided to bet another 2,000 and he flat called. The river brings a blank (2 or 3 I think) and he checks again. Realizing that if he has a better hand, there not much I can do to get him to fold (it would almost have to be a set), he's not likely to call a big bet with an inferior hand, and I still might get check raised and have to fold myself, the best plan for me is to check down with him. He shows down 88 for a set of 8's and I have a little flashback to day 1 of the wsop where John Juanda busted someone on this almost identical hand. The remainder of my event life (to the dinner break) saw me see about 6 playable hands over 6 hours. I won the blinds a couple of times, won an AQs vs AKoff hand against another short stacked all in, and was basically cold-decked and strangled the rest of the time. With 3 very aggressive players with large stacks at my table, almost any hand I played was going to have to be an all-in or nothing proposal. I was forced to fold QQ in the sb when I was positive the aggressive player to my right had AA. Josh had opened the pot UTG with a big raise and the other player reraised him a substantial amount. I was positive he had AA, folded and was correct, having seen the river when the case ace flopped - Josh holding the other A. I recapped my hands for the 6 or so hours of play and realized I had seen KK and QQ once (both losers), AK 4 times (all losers), AQ once (win), JJ once (won blinds), and no other big hands. I did see 55, 66, 77, and 99 (2x) - all of which turned out to be losers. I saw KQs, and KJs once, both folded preflop vs a raise, reraise (and one all in) infront of me. The KJs preflop was the only hand which would have won. Since a very high % of hands were seen to the river, and I was short stacked - I would have been out of the tournament had I played any of them. Finally, the last hand before the dinner break, I was left with about 2,000 in chips. The blinds and antes would be up after the break, and UTG I looked at my first ace in 2 hours, A7off. I realized that I was either gambling with this hand or the next in the BB, and after the break. I decided to move now - figuring A7 was better than any random hand I would get next. 99 called me from the SB and it was over for me when a 9 flopped and the turn paired the board. In retrospect, any one tournament can start bad, run bad, end with cold cards, bad situations, etc. I perhaps felt I might have made a couple more moves, but realized that once the KK hand had lost me half my stack, I was in a tough position with a cold deck. Especially at a table where virtually every hand was raised preflop and many were raised/reraised. I had a great time in Aruba, and will try to insert the last night's play in the live games at a later date. I ended up doing very well in the $1/2 and $2/4 NL games and came home up quite a bit. I just can't wait for next year 8-)

Source: Poker -n- More by Nut Flush