Sunday, Bloody Sunday

Brief-

Played only 5 tourneys on Sunday:

Warm-up 1 mill garunteed!: Double chance which had a 2 hr rebuy period really changed the structure. I decided to play LAG with first buyin and then TAGier with 2nd.
I built up a 35k stack and think I may have been top 20 stacks at one point so the first part of the plan went right.
I could have nitted up a bit but decided that its the wrong tournament to do it in due to the mix of players and that I was running the table over.
I somehow managed to lose like 4k in a 6-way pot (400-800) when I had KJ on button v Cutoffs 44 and he lead 1/3 pot on KJ4 rainbow!
Did i know he had 444? No. But I'll pretend like I did. It came running T 9 so little damage.
I did semi-spew in my attempt to build but I guess that was the plan....i really wanted to take advantage of the double chance.

Anyway i rebought and stacked-out pretty soon after.

EPT step 6: My 2nd attempt of the week yesterday had been a little UL. This time I was playing for a Barca seat.
With a 15k to 10k stack against busto_soon HU I could actually taste victory when:

I peeled his standard min bet from BB with Q7os. Slightly strange line i prefer fold/shoving but my momentum was up and I had been outplaying him on flops.

It came QQThh. I donk lead and he called. I check-shoved a 9h turn and he tanked. I was preying for call and he did with 75hh...ouch.


Sunday Brawl: I played well in this one, standard stuff the wholeway. Amassed a good stack halfway through and maintained a top 20 stack for the most part.

11 left:

I had nothing but a real nitty table image. I 3bet shoved 200kish v LAGTARD buttons min bet.

He called. Me 49os v AJdd. Spike a 9!

I now have 2nd stack. Till some Brazilian Whore decides to do this:

Full Tilt Poker Game #7882492995: The Sunday Brawl (58656031), Table 161 - 8000/16000 Ante 2000 - No Limit Hold'em - 20:43:41 ET - 2008/08/31
Seat 1: MrsESPN (531,866)
Seat 2: SlimFreakie (111,706)
Seat 4: thereal_bandito (604,952)
Seat 5: LeoEleven (208,219)
Seat 6: rubenrtv (434,137)
Seat 8: I CaioPimenta I (516,040)
MrsESPN antes 2,000
SlimFreakie antes 2,000
thereal_bandito antes 2,000
LeoEleven antes 2,000
rubenrtv antes 2,000
I CaioPimenta I antes 2,000
SlimFreakie posts the small blind of 8,000
thereal_bandito posts the big blind of 16,000
MrsESPN: sick beat deserves a lil love :)
The button is in seat #1
*** HOLE CARDS ***
Dealt to thereal_bandito [Th Tc]
LeoEleven folds
rubenrtv folds
SlimFreakie: lol
I CaioPimenta I raises to 40,000
MrsESPN has 15 seconds left to act
MrsESPN folds
SlimFreakie: from wuda been chip leader 2 out the door
SlimFreakie folds
thereal_bandito has 15 seconds left to act
thereal_bandito raises to 120,000
I CaioPimenta I has 15 seconds left to act
I CaioPimenta I has requested TIME
SlimFreakie: lol minute u say chaity
I CaioPimenta I raises to 514,040, and is all in
thereal_bandito calls 394,040
I CaioPimenta I shows [6s Kd]
thereal_bandito shows [Th Tc]
*** FLOP *** [9d 2c 9c]
*** TURN *** [9d 2c 9c] [2h]
*** RIVER *** [9d 2c 9c 2h] [Kh]
I CaioPimenta I shows two pair, Kings and Nines
thereal_bandito shows two pair, Tens and Nines
I CaioPimenta I wins the pot (1,048,080) with two pair, Kings and Nines
*** SUMMARY ***
Total pot 1,048,080 | Rake 0
Board: [9d 2c 9c 2h Kh]
Seat 1: MrsESPN (button) folded before the Flop
Seat 2: SlimFreakie (small blind) folded before the Flop
Seat 4: thereal_bandito (big blind) showed [Th Tc] and lost with two pair, Tens and Nines
Seat 5: LeoEleven folded before the Flop
Seat 6: rubenrtv folded before the Flop
Seat 8: I CaioPimenta I showed [6s Kd] and won (1,048,080) with two pair, Kings and Nines



I busted soon after and did not take the chiplead to final table.

She's HU now with 4-1 chip lead. Nice move!!!

Of course I'm putting 1/3 of my stack in with a hand I will definately laydown to your Tard-SHove, you Tard!

having said that she was probably off her nut on coke. I guess she will donate that back, hopefully to the poker community and not anywhere else.

Monkey Off Back!!

On one of my most successful days in online poker and my best ever week in poker I was finally able to make a Final Table of the 100$rebuy on stars, a tournment known for being the toughest daily comp. in the world.

I was going to say more about it but after a 13 hour day with no breaks I have forgotten everything.

I felt like I played really well and ended up coming 3rd for 13kish$. I lost a monster pot 5 handed with AKhh v JJ: 229hh flop but didnt improve.
HEMIpower: the run away chipleader took me out with JTdd v my AK, I wasn't nitting around or the extra 4k, but i wud have had to do alot to win with my 200k v his 1.2mil, the other foriegn Icelandic nit had like 130k.
He won for the 3rd FUCKING night in a row, what a feat FFS. I dunno whether anything like that has ever been done, ridiculous!

I went deep in 300$ 6-MAX on Full Tilt but only 9th this time. But i'll take 9th and a 3rd from 2 attempts ever in this one, can't remember what I got this time.... 4k$ i think.

-Major pot came when there was 9 of us left.
I raise button with AQ and Ram Vaswani who is a real LAG 3-bets me. I Jam and he calls with JJ.
He's 3rd stack I am 2nd and we play the biggest pot so far.

The board is 885-J!-x and I lose the crucial flip. I bust soon after.


I am happy however wit my two results. My primary aim has been to play bigger MTT's and improve my MTT game via studying more.

I feel like I have improved a vast amount in a relatively short-time but am still aware I have also ran well. Nevertheless I think I am pulling the trigger with greater acuracy and timing then before and this is all contributing to my confidence....I only hope I can continue this into the WCOOP!

EPT London Seat

So I managed to bag my first Live Seat this Season. Each Season being post-pre WSOP.

Funny because the feeling I have now is very different to when i won the same package last year.

Anyway I'm pleased because I foolishly entered the Step 6 in the evening which is always full of sharks namely JohnSmiley1 and Jorgi, as well as Londoners RiverManl and Steve444.
I guess I ran well, though I'd have to against this field. I can't say that I ever had worse than 35% equity in any pot. In the end I 3bet shoved a small chip deficit with Q4ss (this being the best hand I'd seen in 15mins to play back with) he had AK.....guts!

So thats 4 step 6s now: a 2nd in WSOP (2k$) an EPT blank, a WCOOP ME Seat (5200$) and an EPT Package (15k$)

-EV? You must be kidding!
Am I the best SNG player in the world?
YES

FTOPS FINALE: 2500$

So I decided to leave London for a bit and take a weeks holiday. Unfortunately the destination turned out to be Newcastle which was still as grey as ever despite it being mid August. Anyway fuck it, as long as there is a bed and good wireless connection i'm game. Was also start of football season so I wanted to be around other Geordie's for our opener.
My main concern was that I had this big FTOPs Event on Sat/Sun and I needed to readjust my body clock to deal with the possibility of lasting 8 1/2 hours for 2 days in a row.

Friday turned out to be a crappy start to the "holiday". I managed to dust off 10k over breakie which put me in a bit of a shitty mood. I followed that up with a £1k losing sesh at Aspers just moments after arriving in Newcastle at 1am.
My plan had been to stay up till 6 am then sleep at my mate Eds house who had managed to extract £10 out of me as a deposit for sleeping in his bed. Of course when I actually got there someone else was in it. Plus Ed never seems to understand that he needs to return deposits if the service isn't fulfilled.
So without getting to annoyed I grabbed one of my friends and we booked into a hotel with decent wireless for the weekend. It was on Osborne Road (nice) but the room stank of actual shit (guts). Worse still was that i had borrowed Ed's new laptop (£20 deposit lol) and he had already forgotten his password so I couldn't even download Full Tilt.

Anyway after panicking on Saturday evening I finally managed to get setup at Toms house. If only I had rang him before I came up I would have saved like £1500, o well.

Event #23 Saturday August 16th 16:30 ET	Eric Froehlich	$100 + $9 PL Omaha Rebuy	$350,000	1,058

+

Event #22 Saturday August 16th 14:00 ET	Patrik Antonius	$2,500 + $120 NL Hold 'em Two Day Event	$2,000,000	942

942 runners, 30 minute levels, urrrrrrrrg! Can't we just make this a turbo?

I also had 2 Mtts on stars just to ensure I can not concentrate on any of them properly.

I must have played 1000 hands in all of them before i picked up a pair bigger than 99!

I did however win 2 crucial races with AK v TT. The first being against a Laggy European and the other one against FoxwoodsFeind and this managed to keep me near enough av. stack for the first half of the field.
30 minute clock was crazy.....along with 5k starting stacks. On stars it wouldn't have been so long but FT usually has 12 mins and more blind levels so we're looking at comparing it with a 1.30hr clock in a LIVE event....maybe more. I felt like I had to adjust to a play a structure I would only usually play if i was playing the WSOP or WPT Main Event. I made 1 or 2 mistakes early on which probably showed my lack of mega deep stack experience: open limping hands such as AJ/AT suited UTG on strong tables are going to cause more problems then not. 7 7 J A flop v button was a little brutal after a check/pot/call and then another check/pot/shove brought me straight back down to earth which was gutting after doubling through in previous hand.
After these missteps i felt like I played a lot better, i really enjoyed the tournament as a whole because I was forced to bring out my best game that unfortunately only ever comes out in big live events. I enjoyed opening JJ UTG and getting 3-bet, mucking and have the guy show me AA: a standard line with my hand I know but still good to see my radar was on.

It was however JJ which was to be my downfall in the end. I opened from UTG+1 for what was probably 1500ish. Had a shortstack shove for 3k and then the BB shove for 5kish I called to see the shortstack have me beat with QQ but more importantly the BB show TT so I was in for making a small profit on the sidepot. Anyway the Ten hit on the turn and I was left crippled to like 1 BB!
I did in fact make a mini comeback and then played a 3.5k pot with 66 v some maniacs 69ss but he made a straight and i was gone in 250th. Despite it being a losing weekend I was left feeling happy with the way I had played in all my MTTs.

The 100r PLO was unfortunate because I amassed a massive stack off no rebuys. But although I was not short of adequate starting hands I was v.v.v flop dead and I ended up bluff folding flop, then PF stacking-off with K8xx DS against Julian Gardner both times. I play a lot of cash game PLO against him on tilt so he probably knows I capable of some crazy moves.

So FTOPs ended and I made zero cashes but I felt like I highlighted a lot of weaknesses in my MTT game which I will look to sort in time for the WCOOP.

As far as the rest of my poker goes, i took a downswing before I came up in the PLO games. But i felt this was due to not only running badly but playing at unfavorable times ie. When I was in a rush or drunk.
I am please that not only had I broken even but I have added a little profit as well including a 5k$ seat to the WCOOP 10mill Main Event.

However i'm sick to see that FT have a 25k$ PLO HU tourney 64 man Capped! People will probably argue that I am neg EV in this event and I guess I will have to agree but I have played a load of 200$ PLO HU sngs, a fair amount of 500$ and about 6 1000$ matches against Josh Arieh who I am 4-2 down against ( a score that is maybe fair but which i am definitely confident of turning around).
I learned a MASSIVE amount playing against Josh in just a few hours not only about how he plays but about how some of the older heads are likely to play the game. IMO he played pretty badly in a few situations but then very well in others. He's a bit of an action player and bluffs so much that he may turn out to be very light in some showdowns. A good player anyway and one who seemed to finish deep in every FTOP I was in so well done to him.

Wed

Event #11 Monday August 11th 14:00 ET	Andy Bloch	$200 + $16 Limit Hold'em	$200,000

I decided to take Monday night off entirely (really, WTF?!) But got Rich to play this event for me. He's as good a limit player i know with 10,000s of more hands played then me so why not? It wasn't to be though in the end...stupid limit.

Event #13 Thursday August 14th 15:30 ET	Max Pescatori	$200 + $16 HA (half PL Hold 'em, half PL Omaha)	$200,000

Was really looking forward to this event but Full Tilt crashed and it will be the only FTOP that gets cancelled.
To make matter worse I blew a 21k stack after the rebuy period, convincing me that big stacks after rebuys effects my focus. I go from very hot with all the action to very cold in the next 4 (non ante) levels. You then have to get yourself moving again which can be hard.

Actually shit i've just noticed its been rescheduled to Thursday so i'll still get to play it. 8.30pm start but i'm off for a week so thats ok.

Event #16 Wednesday August 13th 14:00 ET	Scott Clements	$200 + $16 Omaha/8	$200,000

Ok so Wednesday has been good in general but could have been better.

1. I made it to EPT step 6 Final but busted like 10th hand. I had Q9ss in pos....maybe to a min raise. flop T87ss.
I 2bet early pos only to get 3 bet by blind. I decided that I have enough equity to gamble here....its basically a winner takes all format so I think thats a fair attitude....alot of scared money in there so I can exploit that with chiplead if i do double through: giving me a strong chance to win the seat.
It sucked a bit cos I'm stacking off here and expecting him to show me J9.
He shows me 8T which I am shocked and pleased to see.
I don't hit obviously and I think i cud of played a smaller pot but for the reasons above I'm pretty happy with my line.

2. I had a good session at 10-20 and felt I played very solidly for 3hrs on a table containing one very good player. I was never allin and found I was gambling less, just playing the player more than the cards. Although I did hold the deck for the first hour so i was definately playing the cards too!
My most interesting hand was a hand where I made Aces full when I just flat called preflop:

PokerStars Game #19584394786: Omaha Pot Limit ($10/$20) - 2008/08/13 - 10:24:23 (ET)
Table 'Porzia' 6-max Seat #3 is the button
Seat 1: < ($2000 in chips)
Seat 2: jessica88 ($1660.50 in chips)
Seat 3: JohnSmiley1 ($3928 in chips)
Seat 5: Bhoth ($2638 in chips)
Seat 6: Bassysaffari ($4245 in chips)
Bhoth: posts small blind $10
Bassysaffari: posts big blind $20
*** HOLE CARDS ***
Dealt to Bassysaffari [4c Qd As Ad]
<: folds
jessica88: folds
JohnSmiley1: raises $40 to $60
Bhoth: folds
Bassysaffari: calls $40
*** FLOP *** [8h Ac Kh]
Bassysaffari: checks
JohnSmiley1: bets $100
Bassysaffari: raises $180 to $280
JohnSmiley1: calls $180
*** TURN *** [8h Ac Kh] [8d]


I cut off the rest of hand to post in a thread but I ended up betting turn and 1/3 pot on river which I first saw as too small but it was also to induce a value reraise/call against my opponents trips/FH range. My opponent had KKxx for 2nd nut house. We discussed my best line wud have been to flat both flop and turn and CR river to stack him. I felt like 90% of my opponents would stack off with KK in that spot seeing as my hand was a little unrepped. I think CR is the best line with my hand if I'm looking to win maximum in longrun. He's going to have draws alot of the time which I have to protect against/make him pay for.
Thing is we are both 200 deep and if he was the type of player to stack of with QJThh then we are playing an 8,000$ flip. Looking at it now I could have slow played the flop inline with my preflop call with AAxx.
I wonder if he is good enough to fold KK on 8KA8 turn to a CR given that I had played solidly infront of him for 30 mins and he can only beat A8???
A real interesting hand given that the way i stack him is by playing a small pot and hoping that turn fills/blanks so that the trap is set for turn/river. Like i said most players at this limit play pretty bad and I would take them to value town as soon as I put them on KKxx. I may CR river EVEN after I have took a betting lead on the last 2 streets.

3. The 2 MTT's I played on stars went well. No cashes but I left each one thinking I couldn't have played much better. I am going deep in the 100r now but more importantly wth Average+ stacks. So when I have busted out it has been in good positions to actually win the thing.

It was a real shame however that I did not make the money in the FTOP event. $ wise its fine but I played so very very patiently before getting a run of 2-3 pots which left me on 17k to 11k average.
I discussed in an earlier blog that I thought FLO8 is a better game than PLO8 and I stand by it. I could actually go as far to say it is one of my strongest.
Is that because I went deepish in a tourney?
Probably Will I ever play it again? No

The sickest hand was when I had A43xdd on a 259d flop. I 2 bet flop and then flatted a Jd turn in pos. Needless to say I missed every Diamond, 3,4,A,6 or Diamond not to mention any 7,8 as extra outs to my nut low draw.....just the 24 cards to hit. The donk probably sccoped with KKT9....so sick.
Thats shit thing about all FL limit games is its totally about playing cards....yeah bluffings important...but the real skill seems to come in extracting maximum value from your hands. You have to stay very patient and not lose your head when your miss every fucking flop.

Week 1 of the FTOPS on Full Tilt Poker

Ok so my schedule went pretty much to plan which was good, I was restricted to playing 14.00ET tourneys unless I wanted to finish at lunch time the next day. I guess I was thankful that I had signed up to most of the events I wanted to play before my losing session on Thursday night.
But that didn't matter too much cos i played like shit in most of them.

Event #2 Thursday August 7th 14:00 ET	Martin Kläser	$240 + $16 PL Omaha/8 Knockout	$200,000	1,138

Strange because I used to really enjoy this game and now i pretty much hate it....
well maybe thats not completely true: the fact that 60% of the poker I play is PLO and 0% is O8 may have something to do with it. I think I definitely prefer FL O8 than PLO8.
What happened here?
played reasonably tight then got it in from blinds with 34hKhx on A 5h 9h board.
was against 235x and i couldn't hit....o well.

If that wasn't bad enough i then proceeded to lose 14,000$ at PLO which was stupid because I was so so knackered. 5-10, then 10-20 and then 25-50 got my last 6k$.....o well.

Event #4 Friday August 8th 14:00 ET	Dag Mikkelsen	$300 + $22 NL Hold 'em 1 rebuy and 1 add-on	$600,000

Spent full amount in this (900$) and actually found myself playing really well. I went deep in it and was average stack until the following hand occurred. I had busted deep in 100r on stars in a 60k pot (av. 20k) with AK v AQ who made 4 to the flush with his Q....ouch. Then 30 mins later this happened:

Full Tilt Poker Game #7565059110: FTOPS Event #4 (1r+1a) (54557558), Table 62 - 300/600 Ante 75 - No Limit Hold'em - 17:09:25 ET - 2008/08/08
Seat 1: The_Dean221 (5,620)
Seat 2: mx4ever (8,400)
Seat 3: johnnykran (10,914)
Seat 4: hikkespett (22,184)
Seat 5: aZeg (15,519)
Seat 6: tedsfishfry (12,880)
Seat 7: busto_soon (31,283)
Seat 8: Ijin (10,672)
Seat 9: thereal_bandito (13,580)
The_Dean221 antes 75
mx4ever antes 75
johnnykran antes 75
hikkespett antes 75
aZeg antes 75
tedsfishfry antes 75
busto_soon antes 75
Ijin antes 75
thereal_bandito antes 75
Ijin posts the small blind of 300
thereal_bandito posts the big blind of 600
The button is in seat #7
*** HOLE CARDS ***
Dealt to thereal_bandito [9d 9s]
The_Dean221 folds
mx4ever folds
johnnykran folds
hikkespett folds
TheDestruction (Observer): HELLO ALL,CAN ANYONE PLEASE SEND ME SOME MONEY??
aZeg raises to 1,500
tedsfishfry folds
busto_soon folds
Ijin calls 1,200
thereal_bandito raises to 13,505, and is all in
aZeg has 15 seconds left to act
aZeg has requested TIME
aZeg raises to 15,444, and is all in
Ijin folds
aZeg shows [6h 6s]
thereal_bandito shows [9d 9s]
Uncalled bet of 1,939 returned to aZeg
*** FLOP *** [2s 6d Jc]
*** TURN *** [2s 6d Jc] [3c]
*** RIVER *** [2s 6d Jc 3c] [8c]
aZeg shows three of a kind, Sixes
thereal_bandito shows a pair of Nines
aZeg wins the pot (29,185) with three of a kind, Sixes


So that kind of sucked. My squeeze was right and Rich seems to think the maths was right for him to calling with 66 there against my range (if i am squeezing optimally) . I guess i did focus on this one and just the beat got in the way.

I went and lost 8k$ at PLO on stars. Thank fully i won some of it back that night playing on. And on Saturday morning i managed to turn it back into 4k$ prof so that felt nice.

Event #6 Saturday August 9th 14:00 ET	Robert Williamson III	$500 + $35 PL Omaha 6-Max	$300,000

PLO 6-MAX? Probably my strongest game. Well i managed to bust out before the first break. 5k starting stacks were generous but I didn't adjust to tourney play. I got real excited when i realized it was just like my cash game.....only problem is you can't reload!
I went up quickly to 8k playing hands in pos, no big hands, just a few bluffs, pick ups in pos. etc.
I remember i drew in one pot when i was drawing to the nut flush...limped pot i'm on button 4 handed with blinds. I have Kc6c4x and the boards J Ac 7 8c and i get CR for the pot. It isn't till i've called that I realize that theres a made straight out there and then a 5 rivers and I tilt call with like worst straight out there.
I bust out when the same guy 3 bets, i get it in on flop drawing to a split.....well played bassy.

Saturday wasn't all a miss tho!

Whats that you made your first "decent" Final table on Stars/FT in over 6 months? Surely not.

Yes, Yes I did. I played the 300$ 6-Max 90,000$.

I think these 6-MAX structures suit me cos i like to play a lot of hands and theres more flop play involved for some reason, probably because your defending against wider ranges of hands so it is safer to take flops drawing live. Or maybe because this one was very well structured.....i'm not sure, maybe someone can tell me.

Anyway i started well. I then flatted 90 with KK in pos v (1k shortstack) and we got it in on Q J 8 flop where he has the 9T off suit so that brought me back down to average.
he then out played in a few SB v Button hands before like the Hero I am I came straight back at him with a Hammer. This being a CR allin on a 5JJ board with KQ. He had KJ and it came T and then 9. ONE TIME BABY! I decided I had to win it after that.

I won't bore you with hands, it went on for 6 hours. I thought I played my best poker in a long time. I made a few hands which was probably a key factor in it, but i also made some good ballsy play. My best hand was when I shoved with KQ on a bb (lagtard) after he had donked on T high flop. We were both dead even on chips, around average and I felt like after that I was going to go all the way.
My main obstacle came to my immediate left. He called a lot of my raise in pos. and probably had the better of me. He took pots of me when I had air and folded when I had hit so he was tricky. Apparently he was a losing played in MTT's but that didn't hurt my respect for him as I too was a losing player on FT and stars in MTT's....he must play a lot of cash. Anyway I got the little fucker when I 4-bet him with 44 on the bubble to final table. He had AK i flopped a set, i ran well with coin flips, woo.

Final Table I had 400k and was chipleader. With an M of about 40 I had good play. Others were on 100-280k.
I called out of SB with 79dd V UTG raiser who's name I will get.
Flop 4h 8c Th. I check called.
Turn 6c. Now I guess I could have donked here with the nuts but I wanted to feign a flush draw and for him to make a big 2nd barrel with his range, especially air. He does and I think CR looks V. strong and elect to just call again.

River is Jh which is going to kill my action but I bet 98k and he calls with AA. This leaves him with under 100k. I think he can only beat a bluff on the river so this was probably a steam-call. It is hard to laydown AA always. Maybe he thought I have a flush or air because anything else I would have to be weary of the flush myself hence my river bet is too big. But i know that I have the nuts because it is unlikely he would barrel against the chipleader on turn with Flush Draw and risk getting bet off it.
I double him up with AK v QQ and then I take out 250k stack with AQ in pos v BB on KKJxT board when it has gone CkCk/Bet-Call/Ck-BET-Shove-call and he shows KQ.

Anyway 3 handed I held 700k in chips to like 500k and 400k. I get card dead and get chopped down a little by this same guy on my left whose name escapes me but he is a top online pro. he starts ripping us both apart. ME-who is card dead and recognizing my M of 40+ trying to stay patient. And THEYID who seems to be holding out for 2nd which is 23$k compared to 17$k and 35$k.
I get 3-bet a bit, I call once or twice and lose pots. Then my hand come. KK on button, with blinds at 5-10k i make it 24k. Good player 3-bets to 86K, i decide to call and cripple/bust this guy here.
Flop 8 9 A.....pretty ugly. I grab the bin and am sick in it.
He bets 126k and I look at my stack which is around 400k now with an M of 19. I can only beat a bluff which is very much in his range but so is a lot of aces. Its a very tough spot because he probably figures I can't have hands that don't contain Aces a high proportion of the time. If I shoves and am right he will fold so I guess I take down 300k to add to my 400k but don't ever really stack him here unless he has a draw or maybe QQ and cant fold. The maths is probably weighing towards a fold, the feel? well he's pretty tough and his bet is hard to read as a result. I fold and bust with 55 CR allin b v b against his 77. Good game, pretty gutted but will take it I guess.

Roy Winston

$240 + $16 NL Hold 'em 6-Max Knockout

$500,000

Thought I'd entered it FFS but instead mistakenly entered the:

Event #10 Sunday August 10th 18:00 ET	Erik Seidel	$300 + $22 NL Hold 'em	$1,500,000

Which was never going to get finished. Although I had 10 7 on 689 flop v AA and it came 8 A! lol!

Event #9 Sunday August 10th 16:00 ET	Kenny Tran	$500 + $35 NL Hold 'em Heads Up	$500,000

Bad tourney selection with over 1300 runners in that I would be up all night and had already played 6 tourneys that day.
ONE BYE. ONE WIN.
Then I crushed my 3rd round opponent till I limped 77 on button (had started limping weak once I had 2-1 lead this time I was strong. He raised 266, i made it 666. He called. Flop Q T x.
He checked with one pot size bet left and I felt it was either Bet and hope he hasn't hit or check and let him bluff pot ....(he was that type). So i put him in and he had AQ so the hand probably played the only way I may have not stacked off...yet i still did. After that he held the match and i busted soon after. In those structures going from near the win to being near the felt is very demoralizing....I'd had a very hard week...including 5 days of work and I think busting may have been the best thing.

So overall how do I think I played?

I'd probably be happy that my MTT game has finally caught up with the US sites.
Having played on WillHill all those years the transformation was hard and the players are the best in the world.
I'd say quitting work would be a good idea if I didn't work for my Dad.
Soon I will need to either make a decision to play less or to play full-time.
Now is probably not the time as i have gone from being a winning player to an income winning player. I have managed to BANK £11,000 this month comapred to July where I must have won then lost around £20,000 in 5 spates of ONLINE MADNESS (PLO).
I just need more focus in MTTs, more consistency in quality of play and more never DIE attitude towards them.

Lets hope I do better in FTOPS this week!