I finished 7th place in the $1500 WSOP NLH Event. It was my first WSOP final table (finally) and my biggest score to date. It was actually the biggest $1500 event the WSOP ever had, with 3157 players that entered.

On day 1 I was able to build my chip count up nicely. I had a couple fortunate spots where people put their money in bad. I ended the day with a great stack. On day 2 I had one of the toughest tables in the room. Most of the table were tournament grinders/regulars or high stakes cash players. The two guys that weren’t were both competent poker players. I made an early push, won some pots, then got unlucky losing AA vs 77, two coinflips, and AKs vs AQo. I was left with about 5 big blinds and doubled up J9o vs A2 and TT vs AJ. Later on in the day I knocked a player out AQ vs JJ.

I played a pretty insane pot late in day 2. It was against a guy from Italy who was an inexperienced player. I raised A2o on the button to 16k at 4k/8k and he called in the small blind. The flop came 445r and he check called 18k. The turn came a 2 (still rainbow board) and he moved all in for 226k. There was between 70k-80k in the pot. I had about 260k in chips and thought about the decision for 5 or more minutes. I was pretty sure he had a hand like Ax and just decided to jam the turn. I wasn’t sure if he would shove 33 or 66 though. It was a spot where I could be a big favorite for a huge pot. I had to put some real thought into the hand. I came to the conclusion that I probably have the best hand but decided to pass on a marginal situation, so I folded. He showed A6dd. He had a few more outs than I expected but it made sense. I finished day 2 6th in chips with 34 remaining players.

Going into day 3 I had Jymaster (good Internet player) directly to my left. He was moved to another table early though and we didn’t really tangle. I knocked out a player with AA vs QQ and was chipping up to contest for the chip lead. I knocked out the 19th place finisher with 99 vs AQ. We redrawed for the final two tables and I was directly to Jymasters left now. Before I knew it we were playing shorthanded poker. I got a player to put it all in on a 952hh board in a 3bet pot with 66 vs my KK. The other table knocked a guy out in 11th place and I entered the final table as one of the chip leaders.

The first player we lost was the Italian gentleman who showed me A6s. We were now “officially” at the final table. There were only 9 players left including Jymaster two to my left. We didn’t lose a player for around 4 hours after this. I lost AK vs a shortstack’s AA and also lost KK vs a 18bb stack’s 66. It was gross. I waited patiently and coolered Jymaster AA vs AKhh but had a sick sweat on a QT9h7h5d board. He was down to 55k in chips at 25k/50k/5k ante and ended up winning K7o vs AK vs AA, K4 vs ATo, and beat my AK with A9o (when another player folded a 9.) I also tried to bust him with 33 vs his 99 in a spot where I 3bet semi bluff and planned to call Jymasters shove (he wasn’t the opener) getting almost 4-1. He miraculously got back up to 1.5m but ended up finishing 9th place after he lost a few pots and had to move all in with a short stack. There were 12 allins before he was knocked out in 9th place. That is ridiculous that we didn’t lose a player for that long.

Here is actually an interview I did with PokerNews after one of the breaks at the final table. We had been playing 9 handed for a few hours at this point.

In a blind vs blind altercation another player busted in 8th place 99 vs JJ. I grinded a short stack and eventually doubled up AT vs K7o when it ran out Q527A. The guy that was against was in seat 1, directly to my right. He was a younger player but was drinking heavily at the final table. He got pretty drunk. He was ranting saying he didn’t even care to be there, he had a flight in 4 hours, blah blah… It was annoying but I was glad to have a belligerent player to my right lol.

I got lucky at the final table when I moved all in for 16bbs 7 handed with AJo and ran into AKo. The board came AQxJx and I doubled up to one of the leaders. I played a few other pots and eventually got into a hand where the drunk player moved all in from the small blind for 13bbs and I called with KTo. He held J9o and won that hand against me when it came 7859x I believe. The blinds and antes were huge and we were losing a lot of chips an orbit. I shoved about 14bbs with A9o on the cutoff and ran into the small blinds AA (same guy who beat my KK vs 66 and won a lot of other allins.)

Here’s a blurb from Bluff Magazine about the final table up until my bustout.

“It was only a matter of minutes after returning from their dinner break for the final eleven players in the $1,500 No Limit Hold’em event to become ten. It didn’t take but twenty more minutes to trim the field from ten to nine.

That is when things started getting crazy. Once the nine-handed final table was set, it would take three hours and fifty minutes to lose a player, as twelve times players were all-in for their tournament life only to survive and double up. Jordan Young lost all but one big blind when he ran Big Slick into Tristan Wade’s pocket aces, but he managed to double up on four separate occasions to go from 55,000 to more than 1.5 million. Despite all the effort to build up his stack, Young couldn’t escape a ninth place finish.

Philippe Vert exited in eighth place a short while later, then another long stretch without an elimination ensued, as seven more times a short stack player was all-in and managed to survive. During this barrage of 19 separate double ups, no player seemed to run worse than Tristan Wade, who got it in ahead on several occasions only to repeatedly be two and three outed. The bad beats took their toll and he finished in seventh place.”

I was very happy with how I played. Obviously to get that far in the tournament I know I was lucky, but to win a tournament you still have to be lucky in the end, which I wasn’t. I want to thank everyone on twitter/online who showed support and all the people who stopped by or watched the final table. It was really nice to see everyone rooting for me. A lot of people said some really nice things to me even after the final table and I appreciate that. I’m hoping this final table is the start to a WSOP heater and maybe another crack at trying to win a bracelet. Hopefully I can continue to play well and make good decisions at the tables. I still have a lot to improve on.

I’ll leave you guys with a nice article Arthur from PokerListings wrote. He’s also the same guy who wrote the article I posted a few weeks ago about me being one of the Top 5 Breakout players at the WSOP this year. Tristan Wade Breaks Out with First WSOP Final Table. I wouldn’t say I necessarily broke out, but it’s nice to be on the board with a final table. Maybe Arthur knows what he’s talking about lol. I still need to win one of these majors though. Goodnight.