WSOP Event 29 recap

Drew table 5, so I got to stay put until the level 7... more on that later.

My table:

Seat 1: Clearly a REC player, easy to follow
Seat 2: Was not sure about this guy. Sometimes REG sometimes not. Always gave me credit for the nuts, which was weird.
Sear 3: Hero
Seat 4: REC player, clearly bad.
Seat 5: Rounder, in Vegas for the month.
Seat 6:
Seat 7:
Seat 8: REC Tell-Box. Leaned forward or crossed arms all the time. Very TAG.
Seat 9: empty for now
Seat 10:

Highlights (actually low-lights in hindsight):

Seat 5 comes to the table late in level 1... Is immediately dealt AK, K high flop, and he gets THREE streets of value from a REC with middle pair. Not a full rotation later, gets paid off with KK. He's is an hour late and already has 14k in chips.

Seat 2 plays too many hands (although never showed down garbage), and gets most of his stack destroyed with middle set vs. top set (against Tell-Box). He then shoves 88 and doubles up on the very next hand. Two hands later doubles through with AJ, where the other player didn't realize that after doubling up, he had close to 7k in chips. Seat 2 now has 15k in chips.

Me, I had not a single pocket pair through mid-level 4. Here is the summary of my playable hands:

Level 4:
55 on the button. Call a raise and cold caller. Flop hits set. Despite there being 5 players in the pot, a small bet gets 4 folds.
AA on the button vs. the blinds. no action.
AK twice. Once hits a King, one whiffed. Both c-bet and both ended pretty quickly after the flop.

9Ts vs. seat 2. I flop Top pair and call a c-bet. The turn is a Q and the board is scary. He checks, and I check behind. River is a 9. I recall the board as 73TQ9. When he checks, I bet for value. I think he is really weak here. He verbally gave me credit for 68 and folded.

Last hand of level 4. AA against seat 2 on a King high flop. I c-bat and he calls. turn is a Q and I check. He bets here 100% of the time. He bets $2k and I have $6k behind leaving a pot size shove. He folds.

I played about 10 hands in level 4, and ended the level at about 13k in chips at the 100/200 level.

Level 5-6: I see 88 four times. All four times in a bad spot. After a raise, utg, etc. I either had to fold them pre-flop or fold on the flop to big action.
I also see a large run of hands containing a 2. Really long. I thus bleed chips in level 6 pretty badly. Folding and folding and folding. In levels 5-6, I had about 9 playable hands, hit zero flops. Took down a hand or two with a c-bet and that is it.

Level 7 brings Joe Cada to the 10 seat and someone he knows to the 1 seat. The tournament shifts to 9 handed and I am the BB and moved to another table. 3 of the players at the new table have monster 100k stacks. I shove in the SB with 78s. The BB wakes up with TT and snap calls. I flop a flush, but he flopped a set. The river pairs and I am done.

I did break my streak of epic bad luck this year. In all the prior year's visit, I went out on a coin flip. But not just any flip, but my only flip. That's right, I have lost every coin flip ever at the WSOP. But this year, I never even managed to get into a flip. Perhaps that will change my luck for Event 59.