Tuesday, February 12, 2008

Big Day in Poker

Yesterday I had my biggest win in online poker. I entered the 664 entrant $163 buyin tournament on Full Tilt at 7pm. By 1:30 AM I had won the tournament, and $24,402. It was the perfect combination of tight aggressive play and luck.

Having gone through the entire hand history of just over 500 hands, I can tell you that only once did I "suck out" or win when I should have lost. However, it was for my tournament life with 4 players left. The blinds were 8k/16k (initial stacks were 3k) with a 2000 chip ante and I only had 144,600 behind. Having less than 10x the big blind of 16k means I'm a short stack and need to make a move fast. With 32k in the pot preflop, winning a hand by making the others fold preflop would increase my stack by more than 20%. I ended up going all in with Qc5c and was called by AhJs. In this situation I am about 40% to win. The flop came [3d 9h 3h] , and I was down to 20% to win. The turn came 8d and I was now 14% to win. As Normal Chad would have said, "Lon, he's sleepin with angels" River came 5s and I won the pot. That brought me up to 310k. Ten hands later I got KK and doubled up to 788,400, eliminating a player. Five hands later I knocked out another player with A9 against 77.

The final hand I held AK and raised to 76,000 with 12k/24k blind levels. My opponent from Switzerland went all in for 700k+ and I called. He showed A3. The flop Was KA3, my hand held, and I took down the tournament. I think I'll take a little break from poker for a few days.

August, 2010 Edit:

almost 30 months ago, still remember this night vividly. i learned an important lesson then.

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