I’ve been relaxing since my Day 1 ended on Saturday night/Sunday morning. The plan for tonight is to do whatever keeps me in the most relaxed state of mind, which probably will be shooting craps for an hour or two and then hiding in my room.

Earlier today I re-read much of my 2005 WSOP novella (see the “WSOP” link at the top of the homepage), and it occurred to me that my 2005 and 2006 Day 1’s were very different.

One obvious difference is that I never had more than 14k on day one in 2005.

The other, more important (but not unrelated) difference is that i’m a better player now. Last year I was pretty overwhelmed with the whole idea of being here. I’m way more seasoned and way more confident now. As a result, I’m able to identify the “just happy to be here” types and prey on them. There is no poker tournament in the world in which the threat of elimination looms larger. After the dinner break, I continually was using that threat as a weapon. On Saturday, I was the “scary guy” at my table; the guy that no one really wants to confront. In contrast, last year, I was one of the guys cowering in fear from the scary guys. And that’s a big part of why I have 42,000 chips instead of 9,700.

Let’s see what comes next. I start play at noon PST tomorrow.