Like moths to a light - many lights, in fact, and bright ones too - the Black Belt Poker team are beginning to make their presence known in Vegas, with Brown Belt Jerome Bradpiece the latest to make the cross-Atlantic journey.
With hopes of surviving the coin-flipping culture of $1,500 'donkaments' and shining in his more favoured Pot Limit Omaha variant, Jerome has once again embarked on his campaign for bracelet gold, commencing his treasure hunt with event #26's $3,000 PLO.
As with 90 percent of the Rio's inhabitants, it proved a fruitless start, with a combination of bad luck and self-confessed missteps his downfall. Despite making Day 2, he struggled to surpass 25 big blinds and bust just 10 spots away from the money.
In his first venture into donkament waters, Jerome enjoyed a northward start when he escalated his 4,500 starting stack to 10,000, but it was, sadly, downhill from there:
"I played one hand poorly," he explained, "with 8h-6h on a Th-5-2h flop - the c-bettor had A-A, and this cost me an extra 1500 chips as I could have called the flop and turn, and folded the river.
"Having failed to learn my lesson, I then defended 8d-6d from the big blind to a button min-raise before getting it all in on a 9-7-Q all-diamond flop against… Ah-Ad! One of his five outs duly arrived on the turn and that was that."
His third event, the $5,000 PLO Six-Max, was equally frustrating as Jerome was unable to edge above his starting stack whilst "watching the worst player at the table scoop pot after pot". His swan song was performed with K-Q-T-9ss versus T-9-8-6 and A-A-x-x - and his dulcet tones couldn't save him.
So three down and the scores on the board are not to Jerome's liking, but he's remaining philosophical in defeat:
"A few years ago I endured a terrible run in Vegas, going over 30 tournaments without cashing, which made me question my skills, so it was comforting to hear Huck Seed bemoan a 35 WSOP non-cash streak, and amusing to learn his neighbour could trump that with a streak of 54, including 37 in one year. You know poker is getting tougher when the brags move on from how much money they've won to how many tournaments they can brick!"
And perhaps Jerome's positive attitude has begun to reap at least a glimmer of reward, as he experienced his first Vegas cash of the year: a min-cash in the daily deepstack. It couldn't recuperate all his buy-ins, but it broke a duck and got him off the mark.
Jerome's next event is today's $10,000 PLO - "my final chance to redeem myself at my best game" - before moving onto a bunch of $1,500s and then, finally, the granddaddy of them all: the $10,000 Main Event.
"Despite coming out later than usual I'm playing a heavier schedule, so of course I'm under-rolled," he concluded. "One year I will learn to cut my coat according to my cloth and not return home in July licking my wounds and needing to replenish my bankroll… I hope."
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