I had a pretty busy weekend. My girlfriend just finished Nursing School so I went to Orlando to watch her graduation festivities for the weekend. I got to see some of my Orlando friends and some guys I used to play poker with. My buddy Reggie I want to shout him out. He say’s he reads every blog haha. I’ve known him ever since I started playing in the home games around Orlando.

On Friday I went to a pinning ceremony, then later that night I went out with some of my buddies. Well since I am not drinking for 3 months I just had to enjoy the night being sober. Driving home to my friend’s apartment (he will remain unnamed) he told me to pull over and that he had to throw up. We were 1 mile away from an exit so I asked him if he could hold it. He said he could. Now I should have learned my lesson years ago about talking to and listening to people who are drunk. Don’t listen to them! So I kept driving and I see him start to roll the window down. He rolls it down about 1/3rd the way and I see his cheeks swell up like a chipmunk. I see some puke start to come out of his mouth while he puts his hand over his mouth and I finish rolling the window down for him. He puts his head out the window and proceeds to vomit. Some of it got inside the car. It was messy lol. We were going 70mph on the highway so it splattered around pretty good. We went back to his apartment and got the car cleaned and also ran it threw a car wash immediately. I won’t out him but I did send pictures of him to one of our mutual friends. He said he was going to get revenge…but I don’t know if he wants to start that war!!!!

On Saturday was the actual graduation ceremony. I woke up and got ready and watched the whole graduation. It was pretty boring since you’re really only there to hear one name called out of x amount of people. After that went to my girls house for a BBQ and just hung out. I had to get back home on Sunday morning for my nephew who was having a christening. I made it to the church just in time and took my place. After that we had some people come back to my parents house for a little after party with some caterers and I decided to take a nap before I played poker.

I went to sleep at around 1:30pm planning on sleeping until 3:30pm so I could play the Sunday Million and all the other later tournaments but I didn’t wake up til about 5:45. I hopped in all the tournaments I could like the 500nl, and other one’s that were still registering. I just played all the later tournaments and I headed over to Stu’s house to play. Hans was there as well. I got deep in the 500nl and some other tournaments but nothing special.

I got home from Stu’s at about 4am and immediately passed out. I woke up and went and worked out and hung around the house for a little bit. I decided to play poker at night instead of grinding all day. I missed the first FTOPS event but I was okay with that. I played the normal nightly schedule including the 1k FTOPS event. I got unlucky about 100 out of the money with QQ vs. AJcc for a 50k pot at 500/1k. He flopped a flush and I was drawing pretty dead. I think average was around 30-35k at that point so I would of been in great shape but that’s poker! I did end up getting lucky enough in the 100r on Pokerstars to get 3rd place for about $20k.

Overall I feel like I played very well. I got into some really sick pots throughout this tournament. Here is one pot nearing the bubble where I just flat a UTG raise with QQ.

PokerStars Game #31490173193: Tournament #185961163, $100+$9 USD Hold’em No Limit – Level XIV (800/1600) – 2009/08/10 23:44:37 ET
Table ‘185961163 9′ 9-max Seat #2 is the button
Seat 1: Cre8ive (78121 in chips)
Seat 2: sms9231 (21201 in chips)
Seat 3: pittrounder (68006 in chips)
Seat 4: ErikTheKing7 (44634 in chips)
Seat 5: hwtd1 (46221 in chips)
Seat 6: twirlpro (35904 in chips)
Seat 7: Schappuscha (59198 in chips)
Seat 8: GeoffRas22 (94130 in chips)
Seat 9: Leanod (2143 in chips)
Cre8ive: posts the ante 150
sms9231: posts the ante 150
pittrounder: posts the ante 150
ErikTheKing7: posts the ante 150
hwtd1: posts the ante 150
twirlpro: posts the ante 150
Schappuscha: posts the ante 150
GeoffRas22: posts the ante 150
Leanod: posts the ante 150
pittrounder: posts small blind 800
ErikTheKing7: posts big blind 1600
*** HOLE CARDS ***
Dealt to Cre8ive [Qs Qd]
hwtd1: raises 2200 to 3800
twirlpro: folds
Schappuscha: folds
GeoffRas22: folds
Leanod: folds
Cre8ive: calls 3800
sms9231: folds
pittrounder: folds
ErikTheKing7: folds
*** FLOP *** [8c 2d 4c]
hwtd1: bets 5825
Cre8ive: raises 8060 to 13885
hwtd1: raises 28386 to 42271 and is all-in
Cre8ive: calls 28386
*** TURN *** [8c 2d 4c] [2s]
*** RIVER *** [8c 2d 4c 2s] [8s]
*** SHOW DOWN ***
hwtd1: shows [9c Kc] (two pair, Eights and Deuces)
Cre8ive: shows [Qs Qd] (two pair, Queens and Eights)
Cre8ive collected 95892 from pot

I held for a huge pot. And then I get into a pot with twirlpro. He’s pretty aggressive and this pot was on just about the absolute bubble. I knew when I raised that he would most likely try to use the button and his position in this pot.

PokerStars Game #31490271743: Tournament #185961163, $100+$9 USD Hold’em No Limit – Level XIV (800/1600) – 2009/08/10 23:48:26 ET
Table ‘185961163 9′ 9-max Seat #6 is the button
Seat 1: Cre8ive (127492 in chips)
Seat 2: sms9231 (20751 in chips)
Seat 3: pittrounder (62868 in chips)
Seat 4: ErikTheKing7 (45384 in chips)
Seat 6: twirlpro (80034 in chips)
Seat 7: Schappuscha (53260 in chips)
Seat 8: GeoffRas22 (58076 in chips)
Seat 9: Leanod (1693 in chips)
Cre8ive: posts the ante 150
sms9231: posts the ante 150
pittrounder: posts the ante 150
ErikTheKing7: posts the ante 150
twirlpro: posts the ante 150
Schappuscha: posts the ante 150
GeoffRas22: posts the ante 150
Leanod: posts the ante 150
Schappuscha: posts small blind 800
GeoffRas22: posts big blind 1600
*** HOLE CARDS ***
Dealt to Cre8ive [Ah As]
Leanod has timed out
Leanod: folds
Leanod is sitting out
Leanod has returned
Cre8ive: raises 2400 to 4000
sms9231: folds
pittrounder: folds
ErikTheKing7: folds
twirlpro: raises 6632 to 10632
Schappuscha: folds
GeoffRas22: folds
Cre8ive: raises 13053 to 23685
twirlpro: calls 13053
*** FLOP *** [6c 9c 3c]
Cre8ive: bets 57000
twirlpro: calls 56199 and is all-in
Uncalled bet (801) returned to Cre8ive
*** TURN *** [6c 9c 3c] [Jd]
*** RIVER *** [6c 9c 3c Jd] [3d]
*** SHOW DOWN ***
Cre8ive: shows [Ah As] (two pair, Aces and Threes)
twirlpro: shows [6h 9h] (two pair, Nines and Sixes)
Cre8ive collected 163368 from pot

Lucky river for me but way lucky flop for him. The flop was horrible for me since I didn’t have a club but either way vs. his range I knew I was in great shape to win a pot and after seeing what he held my read was pretty right there. I would of checked good flops to him and let him bluff probably but with him having a pot sized bet behind after he called my 4bet, shoving the flop was best for me.

I was chip leader when the bubble burst having 200k at 1k/2k. The field was really tough tonight and I basically just hovered about 150k until I made it to the final table. I had 150k at 5k/10k and won my first all in 9 handed AK vs. 77. I then chipped up and eventually we got 3 handed. Me, dyzalot, and sms (chicagocards.) I was down to about 300k to 800k (Chicago) to 1.9m (dyz) and ended up chipping up to 800k 3 handed when my bustout hand came up.

PokerStars Game #31494325259: Tournament #185961163, $100+$9 USD Hold’em No Limit – Level XXVII (12500/25000) – 2009/08/11 3:24:25 ET
Table ‘185961163 13′ 9-max Seat #5 is the button
Seat 4: sms9231 (536906 in chips)
Seat 5: Cre8ive (818368 in chips)
Seat 9: Dyzalot (1631726 in chips)
sms9231: posts the ante 2500
Cre8ive: posts the ante 2500
Dyzalot: posts the ante 2500
Dyzalot: posts small blind 12500
sms9231: posts big blind 25000
*** HOLE CARDS ***
Dealt to Cre8ive [4d 4c]
Cre8ive: raises 37000 to 62000
Dyzalot: raises 100000 to 162000
sms9231: folds
Cre8ive: raises 653868 to 815868 and is all-in
Dyzalot: calls 653868
*** FLOP *** [5d 3c Qh]
*** TURN *** [5d 3c Qh] [As]
*** RIVER *** [5d 3c Qh As] [Js]
*** SHOW DOWN ***
Dyzalot: shows [Ac Ks] (a pair of Aces)
Cre8ive: shows [4d 4c] (a pair of Fours)
Cre8ive said, “gg”
Dyzalot collected 1664236 from pot
sms9231 said, “askdhas”
sms9231 said, “gg”
*** SUMMARY ***
Total pot 1664236 | Rake 0
Board [5d 3c Qh As Js]
Seat 4: sms9231 (big blind) folded before Flop
Seat 5: Cre8ive (button) showed [4d 4c] and lost with a pair of Fours
Seat 9: Dyzalot (small blind) showed [Ac Ks] and won (1664236) with a pair of Aces

Basically I had battled back from about nothing and sms had lost a lot of his chips too. I thought dyz could be 3betting light here given the dynamics and how everything was playing out. I shoved my 4’s and was racing against his AK and couldn’t dodge the turn/river. I like my shove in this spot because I think I get a fold from dyz a good percentage and 44 three handed in this spot doesn’t play so bad. I would of had a little over half the chips in play with first place being almost $36k but I’ll take 3rd. I did all I could and I felt like I played really well considering how tough all the opponents were and some of the spots I was put in. The bubble of the final table was real tough. All players left were really good and playing solid. Luckily things worked out for me to get in a spot to take it down. Time to make some runs at the FTOPS events since I have missed a couple of them this weekend and this week. Goodnight.