WSOP $10k Pot Limit Omaha: Day 1

So Karen jetted back to Belfast on Saturday and when I missed the start of the weekend $1,500 tourney which I had intended to play, I went back to the villa and just chilled out a bit around the pool. I was still in two minds at this stage whether or not to play the $10k omaha. I felt it was probably my best shot at making a final since it would be a relatively small field and a lot of the big American players who would be in it, despite being great tournament players, wouldn't be as experienced as me in omaha. I knew there would be a lot of great omaha players in the field though as well, but overall I thought I had a bit of an edge on the average player.

However, my tournament form hadn't been good since the first event that I played (admittedly it was an omaha event too) and $10k is a decent chunk to fork out for a tournament. In the end I decided to play it. By now you probably know what happened next, but this is the story of the tournament as far as I can remember it.

Day 1

We set off to drive to the Rio with myself, Dave C and Eoin Olin in the car. I'm not superstitious and I don't really believe in good or bad omens, but I certainly didn't feel discouraged when we started up the car to hear Queen's "We Are The Champions" playing on the radio... seriously. My opening table looked tough enough and included David Benyamine. It's played as a double-chance tourney so you start with 10k in chips and a 'rebuy' chip worth 10k that you can use at any time during the first three levels. I had fallen to 8k before I trebled up in a poorly played (by me) hand.

On the big blind, I held AJT5 single suited. There was one limper and Benyamine, who not uncharacteristically, made a standard raise from the button. I called, as did the other guy, and we saw a T52 flop with two hearts. I was under the impression at this stage that I had a nut flush draw and top two pair, which I thought was plenty big enough to attempt a check-raise with, and I was pretty sure David would bet such a raggedy flop if it was checked to him.

There was about 1,500 in the pot, so if there was a bet then I would be able to get nearly all my money in the middle with a strong hand and put the decision back to him. Instead the limper bet the pot and Benyamine raised, I assumed to isolate the other guy. I still believed I was winning at that moment and thought that my nut flush draw was going to cover a lot of their draws so I called all-in.

I turned over my hand to find that I had the lone ace of hearts, and JT of diamonds, which was a bit of disappointment to say the least. However, it turned out I was up against Benyamine's AA44 and the other guy pretty much had a flush draw and nothing else, so I wasn't in bad shape since I was getting 2/1 for my money. My two pair held up and I trebled to almost 25k with my 10k rebuy chip still to be used. I knocked out a fairly short stack when I got it in preflop with double-suited Aces against his JJxx and was up to about 45k (having used my rebuy chip) when that table broke up.

I climbed to 70k or so without major incident, then took a few hits and was back down to about 30k which was now on the short side. By now I had got moved to a third table which included eventual fellow finalist Kido Pham and online sensation Tom "Durrrr" Dwan. I'd got back up to 40k before I limped under the gun with double-suited AAKJ, looking for a raiser behind me.

Dwan limped too and the SB called, so we saw a four-way flop of T62 rainbow. With the two blinds in there and Dwan, whose calling range is probably wider than the SB's, I decided to check. Dwan checked too and the turn brought the Jc which gave me a nut flush draw. The small blind bet around 5k and I called. Dwan re-raised to around 25k and the SB passed. I thought Dwan had sensed weakness (quite rightly) and probably had a hand like 2 pair, against which I had a lot of outs, or else was semi-bluffing with a pair and some kind of draw which I would have been in good shape against. I wasn't going to pass on the river for my last 15k or so, with what could possibly turn out to be the winning hand even if I missed my straight and flush draws, so I raised all-in.

He had J6 for two pair so it was pretty close to a 50/50 situation as I had some bigger two-pair draws as well as straight and flush outs. I rivered an ace for top set and got up to almost 80k. I was in good shape again and went on to finish Day 1 on 120k. I had a couple of beers and went to bed reasonably early.

I'll post Day 2 here tomorrow.