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I started the game as all the others, very tight in the early stages, robbing as the blinds rose and the table tightened, (with my early tight reputation, it was quite easy to build my stack mid-way, but only by small raises).
We were down to the last 3 players, when I got my best bit of luck throughout the six games. The short stack was BB and I went all in with KQ in SB, which he called. I would have been left with only 750 chips if I had lost and would have been against two players with over 2,000 - with the blinds at 100/200.
He turned over QQ, the turn gave me one of the three Kings in the deck. It was silly play on my part, but I reckon it was the nerves. With the chip lead it was easy to rob the blinds on a very tight player and force him to go all in. $35k in 2hrs and 40min. Not a bad return!
I only played a few games during the week, building the initial bankroll to about $450. I was eyeing up the $2.5m tourney on Sunday, but couldn't find much time during the week to qualify. I got home at about 6pm on Saturday and saw a Qualifier starting at 6.30pm. The buy-in was $160, which was bit more than I usually would invest, but noticed there was going to be a big overlay.
I had a good start and took chip leader position by mid-tourney. This has been a regular occurrence for me for the past six months or so in MTT's. I'm nearly always in the top 5% mid-way, but come crashing down with 1 or 2 stupid errors. I think I am getting there tough and Saturday was the first night I had the chance to do this.
I just didn't get the cards for the rest of the tourney, but with some tight play and a few robs approaching the bubble, I managed to stay ahead and qualify. I couldn't relax on Sunday and was pacing around the house psyching myself up for the tourney, annoying the hell out of the wife and kids.
Although, I was too psyched up. I was warning myself not to make any mad sudden moves early-on. I think it was only the third hand, when I got 99 on the button with a 3x raise and two calls before me. I called and so did the small and big. The flop came AA9.
Gin player put in a pot-sized raise and they folded round to me, so I re-raised the pot and he called. The turn showed a 10 and he raised half the pot, which I called. AA was my only worry, as I didn't think he would be playing with A9. Luckily he checked the river, a 6 in the hope I would re-raise - but thankfully since my stack was down to 1,700 from the 5,000 I was happy with a check. He turned AT!
I had a look at the stats after this hand. Started 1470, Left 1468, Position 1467. I thought after all my preparation I was going to be having an early night after all! I had no option but to try and ride out the storm and after a few rounds the table was very tight, so even with my small stack I was able to make some robs at low risk. This came in quite handy for me, when I hit my monster and doubled up to get up to 6,000.
It was time to start building again and by mid-way I had managed to be chip leader. I knew from so many past experiences that this was the most dangerous position for me. I played a very tight game for a few hours here until we got down to about 200 players. Then it was time to put in a few small robs. Once in the money, I played tight looking at each level. When it was close to going up a level it was time to rob. This worked out well and I ended up going into the final table with a chip lead and 25% of the chips.
Then I was looking at only one thing, $525k. The problem was at this stage it was 7am, I had just spent 12 hours concentrating on the screen, but now I could barely focus on it. On top of this, my wife was getting ready to go to work and I had two small girls that were going to be waking up and looking for their breakfast.
At the 5min break I was waking whatever relation I could think of to see if they would baby-sit, not an easy thing to do at 7am on a Monday. There was no joy. I ended up making a couple of stupid bets and soon enough I was back with the rest of them. I think I was trying to close out the game too quickly by bullying with the big stack, but I was finally caught out.
When I was eventually knocked out in 6th for $100,000 I was delighted at first but haven't stopped regretting it ever since. I had a great chance to win it and let myself down at the end. What a whirlwind 10days all the same, from €100 to €100,000. The next step is to prove that it wasn't a fluke of a week and to keep the run going. I have withdrawn all but €2k and am back paying $20 SNG's and the odd $50. The roll is up to €2.5k at the moment. Looking forward to the weekend now and a few MTT's. I might be mortgage free by the summer :)
Comments (6)
Thanks for that Adrian. I have a few Amazon vouchers so might spend them on those books. Any other wins lately?