Can't keep quiet

I took third in the Sierra Poker Classic ME, and I'm pretty happy with how I played with the exception of this hand: with still 9 left, shortly after resuming, I had about 80k in chips and was sitting two to the left of a solid $5/$10 player named Eric from Sacramento, who had the chiplead, but wasn't tremendously far out in front of me. The day prior, I had 3bet him once when he raised in LP and I was OTB, and that pot I took down without seeing a flop. Now, I looked down at 99 OTB and Eric raised from HJ to about 2.5x. I 2.5x'd his raise and he flatted. The flop came 662 with two clubs, he checked, I bet a little over half pot and he 2.5x'd that bet. It was a pretty clear shove or fold spot, which I hated because I was pretty certain that if I pushed he folded all worse hands and called with all better, but if I just called, I give him a chance to catch up and didn't feel like I had such a lock hand that I could risk another card rolling off. I decided that with the slow structure and relatively deep stacks that I could find better spots to pick up small pots and run over my opponents, rather than risk it all in this obviously marginal spot. I mucked and of course Eric turned over the QThh. What I really hate about this hand is that I always mock live players for not having a plan or ever expecting the obvious and knowing how to react, and I simply didn't have a plan once I bet. Anyways, I hung around for a while, we got down to 3 handed and I got all in with AK vs. A9 and lost when a 9 came on the turn. Still a nice showing for only my 2nd big buyin tourney.

I'm in Vegas now. Yesterday I played a $1060 at Caesars WSOP-C and did well until I lost with 99 to A6o AIPF. I had some good hands, one where I got all in with a Q hi flush draw and was elated to see my opponent turn over a 9 hi flush draw, another where I defended my blind with Q8hh vs. an UTG raise, something I wouldn't normally do, but my opponent seemed especially weak and I thought would pay me off with a lot of weaker hands. I flopped a flush and got 2 good streets of value from him before I got a little greedy on the river, thinking he was calling anything and betting a little too much.

Today I went to Venetian to play a $500 DS event, which I didn't realize was a 2 day event and I had never been so happy to get coolered with 30bbs at 8/1600 with QQ vs. KK because A) had I gone deep I would have been forced to miss my friend's graudation party in LA, and B) because I had decided to buy into a Nevada SPCA charity event hosted by Jen Harman. I was multitabling for a little which was incredibly distracting and stupid and something I need to not do anymore, but finally I busted the DS event and could focus on the Charity tourney, and wouldn't you know it I settled for nothing less than 1st place! I obviously ran super hot, but I don't think I made a single mistake when we got down to it. I had the pleasure of playing with Negranu and Jeff Madsen among others, and not only did I win a seat to the WSOP ME, I got a really nice Curtis & Co. watch, an astonishing trophy and some other really neat prizes.

Tomorrow I'm off to LA, but I'll be back for more come Monday.

First live win!

Well it's been a while since I've posted and what better time than after booking my first live win!? During the Sierra Poker Classic here in Tahoe, I trumped a massive field of 35 players with a $340 buyin to take down 1st place and $4500. I really turned up the volume on the aggression factor, open shoving at least 50 times at the final table because people were so concerned about cashing that they would just fold what was clearly the best hand because they didn't want to gamble. HU was more of a battle than I would have liked, I started with nearly a 5:1 chiplead, and at one point, Phi (pronounced fee) Tran reclaimed the chiplead until this hand: Phi limps OTB with 70k chips, blinds 12/2400/300, I look down at American Airlines and decide to raise of course, so I bumped it up, 6k on top, he calls, which was surprising because in the past he had been mostly folding when he limped and I raised. I guess since he had some chips now he decided he was ready to gamble. Dealing at this point was Kevin Ferguson, who interestingly enough, dealt both Jamie Gold and Joe Hachem's final hands for their respective WSOP Main Event victories. Kevin dealt a Q34 flop with two clubs, I led out for 9k, Phi called. Turn was an offsuit 2, making me a little worrysome about 56, but not so much that I'm not still going broke, my read was that he had a Q, and not a Q with any of the possible 2 pair combos on board, maybe Q8-QJ, he wasn't raising with hands like these on the button. I lead out for 21k and Phi shoves relatively quickly, but I called even quicker. He turned over the Q7s and the river came Kd to just about seal it up for me. Tom Sexton, Mike Sexton's brother, was there as tournament director and was announcing the action via microphone to the massive 3 person audience.

I played 5 events in San Diego, made 2 cashes, one of which was a final table, and in that $500 buyin, I got 7th for about $3900. Without a doubt I'm building my confidence in my live play and really starting to get pumped and prepared for the WSOP this year.