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.