I will start off by saying that I hit my biggest online score this weekend on Sunday. I finished 3rd in the $500 NL On Pokerstars for $47,500. I just edged out my previous best online score of 46k which was a couple months back in the Full Tilt Poker $1k Tournament.
This tournament has been my unicorn in the past. There was a month period where I made it to the final two tables (10th-18th) without making the final table three times in a four week period. I was pretty unlucky in those finishes. It was very frustrating. I guess I broke the streak even though I didn’t win. I was very lucky to get third in this tournament. I had a couple suck outs on the way to the final table and then one suck out at the final table. It was probably the worst final table I’ve ever played. I was totally card dead and handcuffed. I had a couple loose/aggressive opponents to my left, but for the most part I had absolutely zero hands at the final table. Again, I was super lucky to finish in third place. I’m happy about the score but I still have a lot more to accomplish.
Like I said in the previous blog I went and played the Hard Rock $1k on Saturday. I had a really crazy table to begin with and it seemed like the field was extra soft. A lot of the regulars didn’t show up. There were four or five people to every flop and nobody was folding to 7x-8x isolation or anything. It was a great table to be at. My stack fluctuated down then up. I lost a couple unlucky pots where I had to make some big folds. They all turned out to be the right fold.
In one pot I was down to about 35bbs and held QTdd on a Q56hh board. A player who had just called led into three of us. I was in a pretty tricky spot but my read on the player was that he had a set or a straight flush draw. I know it seems crazy for me to call out an exact range like that but from playing with the guy for 3 hours I was pretty sure these were his holdings. I decided to fold and he ended up showing 78hh. My read was spot on and avoided getting in a bad spot vs. his range. I then raised AA to 525 and got five callers preflop. I had about 6300 behind. The flop came 235 rainbow. I bet 1250 and the big blind called. The turn was the 8s completing the rainbow board and he checked to me. I didn’t think I could get value from hands like A3/A5/66/77/56/etc so I decided to check back and let him fire the river. The river was the Ts and he put me all in for about 5100. I called and he turned over 55 and I was done. That’s just how my day went. I played fairly well I believe and just got put in some unlucky situations.
After that I made it home in time to play a couple online tournaments. They didn’t go so well for me either. Here’s one of the hands from Saturday.
Full Tilt Poker Game #18821784514: $100,000 Guarantee (130362564), Table 2 – 20/40 – No Limit Hold’em – 15:25:40 ET – 2010/02/27
Seat 1: cocoa_butter111 (3,675)
Seat 2: gretko (3,035)
Seat 3: Flaanders (1,840)
Seat 4: Cre8ive (2,880)
Seat 5: TAKETHECAN0LLIS (2,950)
Seat 6: philbort (3,650)
philbort posts the small blind of 20
cocoa_butter111 posts the big blind of 40
The button is in seat #5
*** HOLE CARDS ***
Dealt to Cre8ive [Kc Ac]
gretko has 15 seconds left to act
gretko has timed out
gretko folds
gretko is sitting out
Flaanders folds
Cre8ive raises to 120
TAKETHECAN0LLIS folds
gretko has returned
philbort has 15 seconds left to act
philbort raises to 360
cocoa_butter111 has 15 seconds left to act
cocoa_butter111 folds
Cre8ive has 15 seconds left to act
Cre8ive has requested TIME
Cre8ive raises to 780
philbort has 15 seconds left to act
philbort raises to 3,650, and is all in
Cre8ive calls 2,100, and is all in
philbort shows [8s 7s]
Cre8ive shows [Kc Ac]
Uncalled bet of 770 returned to philbort
*** FLOP *** [8c 5d 5h]
*** TURN *** [8c 5d 5h] [2d]
*** RIVER *** [8c 5d 5h 2d] [Js]
philbort shows two pair, Eights and Fives
Cre8ive shows a pair of Fives
philbort wins the pot (5,800) with two pair, Eights and Fives
Saturday just wasn’t my day. I couldn’t win a pot. Some days are like that. Luckily I was able to make a deep run on Sunday and have a very successful weekend.
I still need more submissions for the art contest. If you think you are “Cre8ive” enough to design some artwork, check out the last blog and shoot me an e-mail. The contest ends Thursday night so you better hurry up and get the artwork to me as soon as possible!
Here’s an interesting spot from early on at the final table in the Sunday 500. What would you guys do here?
PokerStars Game #40492645246: Tournament #286020018, $500+$30 USD Hold’em No Limit – Level XXIV (12500/25000) – 2010/03/01 2:22:49 ET
Table ‘286020018 50′ 9-max Seat #4 is the button
Seat 1: ANIMAL5050 (1651889 in chips)
Seat 2: tabzzy (2309715 in chips)
Seat 3: jdtjpoker (414640 in chips)
Seat 4: HundoFight (390978 in chips)
Seat 5: Cre8ive (1111675 in chips)
Seat 6: shampusik (1046500 in chips)
Seat 7: leoe29 (1190151 in chips)
Seat 8: BoldNutz (968585 in chips)
Seat 9: badbeatman06 (895867 in chips)
ANIMAL5050: posts the ante 2500
tabzzy: posts the ante 2500
jdtjpoker: posts the ante 2500
HundoFight: posts the ante 2500
Cre8ive: posts the ante 2500
shampusik: posts the ante 2500
leoe29: posts the ante 2500
BoldNutz: posts the ante 2500
badbeatman06: posts the ante 2500
Cre8ive: posts small blind 12500
shampusik: posts big blind 25000
*** HOLE CARDS ***
Dealt to Cre8ive [6c 6h]
leoe29: folds
BoldNutz: folds
badbeatman06: folds
ANIMAL5050: folds
tabzzy: folds
jdtjpoker: folds
HundoFight: folds
Cre8ive: raises 50000 to 75000
shampusik: raises 969000 to 1044000 and is all-in
Cre8ive: ?????????
Lastly congrats to my buddy Steve Karp for a deep run in the LAPC, finishing 27th for about $50k. Also good luck to Jason Mercier who just final tabled the LAPC High Rollers event where first place is 425k. Steve wanted me to fly out to LA today but I declined. I wish I was out there now… Oh well. Goodnight.
