More Clawing

My 5k table was a bit unusual. There were three or four guys who had no idea how to play and I focused on playing pots with them. There were solid players such as Amnon Filippi and Noah Boeken. And then there were three players whom you could make a legitimate argument for as the current best tournament player in the world: Steve Wong (moved to the table after a couple hours), Nam Le (two to my left), and Allen Cunningham (to Nam's left). As I looked around the Fontana Lounge today, I started thinking about my EV in an event like this. I may be playing well, but it's hard to imagine my EV is ahead of John Juanda, Erik Seidel, Cunningham, Le, Daniel Negreanu, etc. The experience is great though, and damn I am playing well. Definitely the best of my life. I think anyone at that table would say I was playing well, and they had no idea of the kind of crappy cards I was repeatedly looking down at. I did the best I could today and yesterday, but sooner or later you just need to get some hands.

A bunch of us went out for lobster on the Strip followed by some gambling, but my heart wasn't in it. All I can really think about right now is what I need to do to win one of these poker tournaments. I don't know if I've been this obsessed with the game since the breakthrough summer of '04. I think I'm going to just keep playing every day, and at this point I wouldn't dream of missing the main event.