Analysis of My WSOP Event

Was CC a donkey?
Or a fish with teeth that couldn't bite anyone?

Well, I played in the World Series for roughly 200 minutes or so. I understand how folks really don't want to recount their experience most of the time, but as many of you know, I' all about wading into uncomfortable waters. Let me grade my performance as well as comment about a bunch of this:

• Overall Stats: VP$IP (est 18%) blinds defended (<10%),>
• Limps vs. raising: I'm a pre-flop raiser most of the time and limped normally much more than I ever do. I think I should have stayed true to my style. I listened to Juan Carlos Mortensen's advice at the end of our interview (limp more than normally because there are alot of bad players there). Well, what I forgot was I'm one of those bad players. He told a story to illustrate: with blinds of something ridiculous, a guy min raises and he looks at K-6o and calls. Flop come K-8-6, he checks, guy bets $250, he raises to $500, guy shoves, and Mortensen thinks a bit then calls. Guy had A-2o.
• More about raising: I should have raised more consistently with my middle pairs. I can't say I was card dead as I got aces twice, jacks once, As-Qs, several small pocket pairs.
• Guts: C+. I was hardly fearless or anything, although I did come over the top and put a couple to the test, causing a laydown. Should I have done more of that with rags? I don't know. Maybe more like a C-. Darden called some guy with a K-rag flop with 8-8 (he called with queens I think).
  
• Players I outlasted: Men the Master, Doyle Brunson, Clonie Gowen, Howard Lederer, and Mike Caro.
  
• Having Darden at my table affected me. He would do the following: raise 50% of the pots, normally 2x bb with a few 3x thrown in. He would call any re-raise. He would continuation bet. He would keep firing, once losing a pot with Ax for ace high vs. Vlad the Terrible with second pair. He knew what time it was with everyone there, it seemed.
• Accumulating chips early: one way of looking at the WSOP is that all pros are one team and all fish are another team. Pros are going to hack away at the fish, commit chips proactively at pots (+EV, because they are taking the pots 50% of the time, getting 50-200% more chips than their bet post-flop when they hit, and can get away from their hands if post-flop action goes south). If all the pros are basically doing this, then they're accumulating these chips. In the individual sense, Doyle going out is a tragedy. In the broad context of pros, they are all grabbing chips. You absolutely have to get some serious chips early so that you aren't pot committed in Levels 3-5 if you've been treading water.
• Available pots that I stabbed at: zero
• Tightness factor: fairly high, throwing away A-10 UTG, A-8o on the button to a raise, a bunch of pocket pairs.

Tons more photos for everyone from this event to follow.