I arrived at the Rio, and proceeded to head for the poker room I wasn't all that nervous or anything, it was more excitement than anything else. Me, Adrian, and Mark are walking talking poker, and Adrian gives us some tips on the rules and how to try and play the first couple of hours. We were comparing seat cards and what not, and I was at table 109 while Mark and Adrian's tables were in the 200's. We go to find my table and discover it's outside in the "heat tent" which was this make shift tent that Harrah's had setup a large section of tables outside in this tent with portable AC units. Well that's all fine and dandy, but it's Las Vegas with it's 106 degree heat and a tent room, not enough AC in the world is going to cool that place off!!! So we go back into this loading dock area, and Mark wants to Video Blog us before the tourney, so we went to the loading area because we didn't want to look like newb tourists LOL. After the "Vlog" we wish each other luck and I head off to my table.
I sit down in seat 9, and is a British dude to my left and then some dude who thought he was a rapper sitting to my right. The table fills up except one player and the tournament director starts the tournament. I look around to see what Pros are near me (there are none at my table), and I see Andrew Black walk in about 4 tables over. Then J.C. Tran walks in and comes towards my table and I am like that will be interesting, but he walks past and sits at the table next to mine. My table is full of amateurs and wannabe's for the most part, and I have learned if you listen to people talk they can tell you all you need to know about how they play LOL.
The guy in seat 1 gets aces on the first hand and takes about $1000 chips from this Swedish guy in seat 2, I think I have found the ATM at the table. So I get dealt
in the cutoff seat. The action wasn't raised to me just a four limpers, so I pump up the 25/50 blinds to $200 (overbet I know). Everyone folds except the "Swedish ATM", he calls and the flop comes 
he checks to me and I lead out with a continuation bet of about $200 he calls!!!!! The next card is a 
he checks to me. At this point I am not sure if I should fire again or just check, I don't feel he is on a flush draw, I start to think that he may have a small pair. So I fire out again with a bet of $200, he calls!!!!! The river card 
and I say bingo in my head, and of course he checks and I over bet $400 so he thinks I am bluffing, but he folds to me and I take down about a nice pot early.So I am off to a decent start, I am up to about $4500 early ($1500 over the starting amount), which is good. I called a few small raises to see if I could catch something, but nothing came of it. Then I was dealt
while I was on the button. Seat 5 raises to $250, I call with jacks of course, but I don't feel good about it because I prefer to be the initial raiser. The flop comes 
me and Seat 5 are heads up and he checks to me, I lead out with a bet of $250 as sort of a feeler bet, he calls. The next card is 
he checks to me again and I lead out with a "Strong" bet of $600 hoping to take the hand down right then, he ho's and hum's and calls. The last card 
making a flush which I don't think he has, and he immediately pushes all in for his last $900 (F*CK!!!!!!!!!!!!!!). There is almost 3000 in the pot, and if I call I will be down to about $1675 in chips. I don't think the flush is likely, the only think i can think of is he had the 10's the entire time and was slowplaying them. But it was just wierd so I folded after a lot of thinking. He didn't show, so I will never know what he had.The infamous last hand I was dealt
and everyone limped it came to me and I pumped it up to $300 (the blinds were 50/100), and this Canadian lady re-raised me to $600 I just call (which was probably a mistake). The Flop comes 
making a top set of kings with my hand. Since I was acting first I lead out with a bet of about $400, I intentionally underbet the value of the pot so it would give her a reason to call. She calls and the next card is 
I am thinking about the range of hands she may have and I thought maybe she had Ace King with the way she played things so far. I lead out with a bet of $1000 in order to see how serious she was, and I only had $625 left after that. She asks how much I have left and she puts me all-in, I gladly call and the river card is 
and I show my set of kings and ask her if she has a jack (which crept into my mind as the last card was being flipped), and she says yes and turns over 
which gave her a 1-Card straight, and it knocked me out of the tournament. I wasn't mad about it, but I wished I was able to stay in a bit longer and see how things would have gone.
, Gerrie catches a 
on the flop and he survives. Once again good call, but nothing I can really do about it at this point.
in fairly early position, I was dwindling in chips and the blinds had gotten up to a decent amount so I decide to push all in hoping for a fold as there was about $450 in blinds to be had in the pot. Suprisingly everyone folds, I thought for sure I would get a call from someone, but I didn't and I needed chips too. The tournament started with 18 players and at this point there were about 13 people left, and the final table seemed far from attainable to me. For some reason I just wasn't feeling great about my chances at this point.
, what??? Of course he promptly catches a 
on the flop and my hand doesn't improve to knock me out of the tournament. I didn't pay much attention to the rest of the tournament, I went off and did Karaoke to get my mind of off it. Here were the final results: