FULL TILT POKER BLOG

#349 – The Sick Prince of Sunday Evening, or: A Night Fever No Disco Suit Could Cure

Posted by Editor | Filed under Uncategorized

I’m feeling ill so I have to keep this short. I had my best day as a poker player Sunday. It took me 15 1/2 hours but I filled some holes in my online playing resume, reclaimed another tournament, and won over $46,000.

It started when I made the final table of a pair of satellites to the Sunday Brawl, winning one to make it into the event. Having already won one entry into the Sunday Horse and two entries into the $750,000 Guarantee, I felt good about freerolling into what for me has sometimes been a very expensive day of tournament poker … even if I didn’t feel physically well. The Sunday Brawl started at noon and I was in the money by the time the $750,000 Guarantee began at 4.

I busted early in ghe Guarantee to Matt Sexton. I swear, that family has some kind of old-world vendetta against me; entire plantations are devoted to raising and harvesting the cotton necessary for the tee shirts they receive on a regular basis for busting me. But it also allowed me to keep focused on the Brawl.

In the end, I collected 15 scalps in the Brawl (worth $600) and finished 3rd (worth over $36,000). More important (to me), I persevered over a field of nearly 1,800, a major step forward for me in maintaining the patience and focus to succeed in large-field only tournaments.

The Sunday $20,000 Guarantee HORSE started while I was at the final table of the Brawl. I would have unregistered to focus on just the Brawl but I won my entry so that wasn’t possible. I suppose I could have posted-and-folded but I started by doing the next best thing: pissing away chips. I remember one hand of hold ‘em where we went for three bets on a couple consecutive streets because I had a straight … and then realized, no, it was just a straight DRAW. I have J-9 and I’m trading raises with a guy on a board of T-Q-T-Q.

Then, about an hour into the HORSE, I busted in the Brawl. On consecutive hands, I had J-J and Q-Q and got it all-in before the flop against, it turned out, A-9 and A-J. I was disappointed, it was a letdown, etc. etc. etc.

What do to about the HORSE, where I had a little more than half my starting chips? I’ve been feeling sick the last few days, surviving in the Sunday Brawl on just adrenaline and high hopes. I felt the tank nudge toward empty and considered just going to bed, posting and folding, or pissing away my remaining chips.

But I couldn’t. I’ve quoted Arnold Schwartzenegger on this several times in situations where it’s really in my interest to NOT be playing poker: “I cannot self-terminate.”

I won a couple pots and started saying to Jo Anne, who watched me for some of the final table in the Brawl, “Wouldn’t it be so cool if I figured out a way to go deep in the HORSE?” That became my theme.

I kept hanging around, trying to figure out a way to finish in the money. The money itself didn’t mean much – shortly after winning $36,000 (and feeling you’re “owed” another $50,000), $358 doesn’t create excitement. But I knew if I could just make it into the money, especially because I spent a long time in the upper-middle part of the field, I might be able to find a way to … go further.

And that’s what happened. I kept sticking around, making it into the money, surviving one short-stack situation, and then generally playing smart with a good stack to the final table.

Let me tell you how tired I was by the time I made the final table: I didn’t even enter the Turbo Hundo. I was so deep into survival mode that I didn’t even entertain thoughts of winning the HORSE until we were three-handed. By then I had a lot of chips and a pair of inexperienced opponents, one of whom seemed to want to fight a war of words as well as cards. I simply wasn’t going to be denied. And the last obstacle had some flaws in his game. And I got the better cards at the end.

So at about 1:45 AM, 15 1/2 hours after I started my day (just missing the start of the big turbo satellite into the Sunday Brawl), I finished off the last of 178 opponents in the HORSE to win the tournament for the second time in five weeks and $9,800. (I also busted David Bradley to pick up the bustout bounty and bring my winnings for the event to a cool $10,000.)

Best day in poker ever for me. So far.

Popularity: 1% [?]

Be Sociable, Share!