A Kodak picture moment

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2BA

Small cashes

So here again I'm in position to make another 2 final tables, but was not to be this time....check out my bustout hand from the 2nd tournament, on what amounts to a 60/40 for a 45K pot:

Oh well.......and in case your wondering, I make that call in that spot every day of the week and twice on Sunday!

2BA

Strike while the iron is hot

A couple of key hands at the final table....... I got lucky on this hand, and busted 2 players:

5 handed, I took on the big stack and came out ahead:

After that hand, the Big stack took everyone else out, including me when I pushed QT heads up, and he woke up with AJ, which held.

Weeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeee!!!!!!!

2BA

80K Win Recap

It took a total of 594 hands from start to finish. As you can see, entering the final table, I was in 7th place, and on the short stack.

Seat 1: bighorn44 (702457 in chips)

Seat 2: horus7 (318363 in chips)

Seat 3: df1986 (908610 in chips)

Seat 4: krasark (265849 in chips)

Seat 5: dotsean (1205457 in chips)

Seat 6: AABenjaminAA (193737 in chips)

Seat 7: LunaPiena (259246 in chips)

Seat 8: TeamWispy (393684 in chips)

Seat 9: 7he M0ule (375597 in chips)

And this is how we all finished, including the prize money:

1: LunaPiena (Frisco), $25742.51 (16.705%)

2: horus7 (Wellington), $18800.20 (12.2%)

3: df1986 (Las Vegas), $14177.20 (9.2%)

4: TeamWispy (The Sunday Special), $10478.80 (6.8%)

5: dotsean (Budapest), $7550.90 (4.9%)

6: AABenjaminAA (Čelákovice), $6009.90 (3.9%)

7: bighorn44 (Marlboro), $4468.90 (2.9%)

8: 7he M0ule (Druelle), $2927.90 (1.9%)

9: krasark (New York), $1602.64 (1.04%)

I'll start off with a hand that I was not involved in, but was pretty crazy:

I broke my rule about looking at the payouts, but when that flop hit, I took a quick peek thinking that we would lose our first player....only to see that river hit, and remember thinking that I had 'jinxed' it by looking.

Here, we finally do lose our 1st player:

Here, I get my first big hand, and have and easy push:

So, I got a little breathing room which was nice. DotSean would lose his chip lead subsequent to this hand, by making 3 and 4 bets, only to fold to a shove. Like here:

Then he lost more and the chip lead against teamwispy when he made DQB:

We lost the next player on this hand:

For the next 20-30 hands, I went sub zero card dead. Got absolutely no playable hands, to the point where I was just looking to shove any un-open pot. However, that never happened. Pots were raised and re-raised, and I kept getting garbage. Finally, down to 3 bets and in the BB, I was going with whatever I was dealt. Luckily, I got a hand:

I ran the emotional rollercoaster going from happy that I dominated my opponent, to the utter freaking frustration of seeing his 3 outer hit on the flop, to then seeing the running crubs! Them Crubs are sooooo nice! Viva le Crubs!!!

A dozen or so hands later, I had blinded down some again, and made another stand with A9:

Again....the poker gods came through on the TURN card, and I was no longer the shorty. I then next picked up the AsianJew and reshoved our buddy Dotsean, and got some more chips:

We lost our next player on this suckout:

Then after this bustout, we were down to 5 handed:

This is how we stood:

Seat 2: horus7 (471038 in chips)

Seat 3: df1986 (1512478 in chips)

Seat 5: dotsean (885236 in chips)

Seat 7: LunaPiena (369984 in chips)

Seat 8: TeamWispy (1384264 in chips)

Again, on the short stack, but not at all uncomfortable with my position. Here, DotSean decides to make a crying call with A3, and is dominated, dropping him to the Dank Position:

Here, we have a swap of the lead, with TeamWispy getting caught after the upteenth time of muscle shoving his stack, knowing that DotSean was super short stack....however:

DotSean actually doubles up a bit later, sending me down to the Dank position, until I made a stand with KQ on this hand:

He actually makes another double up, but then finally is eliminated:

Then there were 4, with me still being in the Dank position:

Seat 2: horus7 (1724152 in chips)

Seat 3: df1986 (1235780 in chips)

Seat 7: LunaPiena (611968 in chips)

Seat 8: TeamWispy (1051100 in chips)

We then proceeded to do the 4 player dance, with all taking turns raising and stealing the blinds/ante's. Then we get to my next key hand:

And with that, I took the lead for the first time. Of course you are never happy when your big slick is up against two other unpaired cards, but they held! And thats all that matters!

Seat 2: horus7 (962322 in chips)

Seat 3: df1986 (935780 in chips)

Seat 7: LunaPiena (1512936 in chips)

Seat 8: TeamWispy (1211962 in chips)

We then danced again for a bunch of hands, and actually were pretty even when this hand came up, and eliminated the TeamWispy:

And with that elimination, I'll get to what undoubtedly was the BIG hand which propelled me to victory. Horus with his big chip lead, started to shove almost every hand....but he pushed his luck a bit too much, and got not one but both of us in this pot, with me holding cowboys:

It doesn't get sweeter than that! BOOM!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Very next hand I take out DF when I call his shoved with JT:

And then Heads up play only lasted 1 Hand! And here it is:

And that folks, is how you win 25K!!!

Thanks to everyone who posted their congrats, I appreciate it very much!

2BA

Huge Score!

Well, it must be something about taking breaks, because when I do, I seem to have pretty good success when I come back. I had a family matter that I had to deal with, and hence had not played any tournaments since about a week ago. I finally did get to play last night, and actually had a few small cashes on FullTilt.

Today, I wanted to play all the Mini FTOPS, and a few other tournaments including the 750K. Well, my day on FT did not go all well, in fact, I was pretty disgusted with some of the beats that were handed to me. So on a sheer whim, I fired up my Pokerstars client, and I had exactly $120 bucks in the account. I saw there was an 80K guaranteed that had started, but apparently even though the tournament had been going some 30+ minutes, late registration was still open...and I joined. Holy smokes, what a freaking good call that was!!!!

Behold, my largest ever online tournament victory:

I'll see if I can muster up some of the final table action tomorrow to post on the blog, but suffice it to say for now, that I played a pretty fantastic final table, and thankfully, when I did have to put it all in the middle, the poker gods smiled nicely for a very pleasant change.

The rush that comes from taking one of these down is second to none, and is why I love to play tournament poker. It almost makes you forget all the bad beats, that in the past, have been what has prevented this kind of victory.

To steal a quote I once heard from Tommy Lasorda....How sweet it is, the fruits of victory!

2BA

Barry Greenstein's profit/loss log

Thought this might be of interest to some of you.

I think we all know that trying to make a living as a professional tournament player, is well like many have said...a tough/hard way to make an easy living.

2BA

St8 Flush

Highlight of the day obv....even got paid off!

2BA