I woke up and excited and ready to play in todayís 5k NL 6 max event. Six max No Limit is my strongest game due, Iíve played well over a million hands of it online.
So I woke up, had a bad-ass workout, mediated and ate some plants and got ready to go play my A game. This is the best Iíve felt before the tournament since the 5k Mixed and I felt like I was ready to give it 100% for 10 hours+.
I arrived 5 minutes late and set down at my table, where my manger had put down my seat card. I shot a quick glance around the table and didnít recognize one face. This is a really good sign since I know most high stakes professional poker players. I also quickly glanced at the breaking order and saw that my table wasnít going to break for a long time. This was my ideal first table for the tournament.
A few hands in I picked up pocket tens first to act. I had already been playing pretty aggressive splashing around in some small pots. The blinds were 25/50 and I had a 10,000 stack. I raised to 150 and everyone called beside the Cutoff. The flop came down Td4d2s, my ideal flop. The blinds checked to me and I bet 500. It was folded around to the small blind who made it 600 more. I thought for a while and made it 2500 to go. He then tanked and made it 2200 more. At this point I had 6500 chips left, so going all in would only be 4300 more chips. At this point I was sure he had a strong hand, something like a combo draw, AT,JJ,QQ or a set and didnít think he was going to fold. So I thought for about 45 seconds while he took off his sunglasses and stared at me and looked very sad. Then I went all in.
He instantly called and I flipped up TT for the stones and he groaned and flipped up 22 and was drawing to one out. The turn came the 2c and he jumped out of his seat yelling ìYeah!î and pumping his fist. The river came the 3s and I was out for the day. I stood up and muttered something about how unlucky I was, I normally try to be stoic after I bust out of the tournament but It was so unexpected today I couldnít help myself. But I did all I could do, I played well, got my money in as a 96% favorite, sometimes in poker things just donít work out.
June 27th, 2008 at 6:50 am
Your restraint at avoiding the combined impact of your hand, the back of his head and the table padding is commendable.
That is almost as bad as the 28255 hand man, I have to say….take a vacation for a couple of days.
Good luck in the main event next week.
July 1st, 2008 at 11:05 pm
I was in the 2 seat, the kid that bet into you on the first hand you played one the 6-high board and 3-bet you a few hands later. The TT<22 was such a hilarious/brutal hand…that dude was the WOOOOOOOORST, he called out of the BB vs 100% of my button raises, even with 32s and other shit. I got him all in with 55 vs his AJss on a 653ssx flop for 40k the last hand before dinner break and he spiked on me as well.
I hung around a few more hours before busting near the bubble. When I left he was well over 100k, then he busted my friend Vivek (psyduck from 2+2), and I saw picture of him on PokerNews on day 2 where he had about 300k in front of him, but they mislabeled the picture as “Chad Batista” so I never figured out who he was.