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Starting with 120k, I won and lost a few small pots but managed to build my stack to around the 200k mark after a few levels and sneaked into the money ($25k guaranteed) without taking any major hits. I got my first big pot and doubled up when I was all-in with bottom two pair against Dario Alioto's overpair. This moved me up to around 350k in chips and I had a very comfortable stack for the first time of the day.
I'd reached the 400k mark when I took my first big hit, doubling up a short stack when he sucked out on my AAxx with his QQxx, all-in preflop, but it still left me with 280k which was ahead of average. I picked up a few good hands after this though and built my stack back up to about 400k again for the dinner break. I dined with a couple of friends including Tom Hanlon who also made the money.
We had a bottle of wine between us and then he made the irresponsible decision to order a second bottle before we left. This led to about another 10 Heinekens for me and the same for him in vodka-and-cokes at the table after the break. With hindsight, this may have worked in our favour as I don't think the rest of the players knew quite what to make of these two Irish guys who were ordering drink like it was going out of fashion three tables from home in one of the biggest tournaments of their lives. Personally I feel I was still in control of how I was playing and I'm sure I didn't feel the pressure that a lot of the other guys were feeling.
I'm not able to fully remember the details of all the big pots at the end of the night. I remember moving from around 600k up to about 800k, taking out a relatively short-stacked Scandinavian player when I got it in pre-flop with AAxx and my hand held up. I also remember one other pot which was quite funny between me and Kido Pham. I just called preflop with AAxx, this time as we were both very deep and he had position on me, then I called another bet on a raggedy flop. We both checked the blank on the turn and the river paired the highest card on the board. I was fairly sure I was winning but thought that a check-call was better than a value bet as I thought he had nothing at all and might bluff. He asked me if I was a European player and I said I was, so he bet the pot.
As I called him, I told him that had I been an American player I might have been good enough to pass this hand, but because I was only a European player I would have to pay him off.
After that I got to almost 1.4 million in chips, was feeling good and decided to press on. However, I took a few hits and decided to slow down again approaching the final table and got through with a perfectly respectable stack of just over 1 million. Tom scraped through with around 200k after losing an 800k coin flip three tables out and he had struggled with a shortish stack since. He tried to drag me to the bar for a few more after our final-table chips were bagged but luckily I had a couple of (temporarily!) sensible friends there who dragged me home.
Tomorrow I'll post my diary entry from the last day of the Omaha event, and that will be followed by a few blogs describing the remainder of my stay in the gambling capital of the world.
Comments (1)
Thats one way of dealing with pressure!