Two of the players are wearing suits. Really? You're getting dressed up for the final 15 of a $500 circuit event? Granted I wore my lucky bright orange New Balances but the whole suit thing is a bit overkill.
We start off in the same seats as before with Men to my right and the chip leader to my left. We play a few hands before the shortest stack busts at the other table and we have to balance the tables. The poker gods were on my side today. The big blind at our table is moved to the other one. Good bye Mr. Master. Who says there's no luck in poker? The table is mine and it doesn't take long for me get involved in a hand with the temporary chip leader.
Its folded around to me in the small blind and I make a 2.5x raise (I can't remember what the blinds were) with 9h 5s. The big blind calls and the flop comes 5d As 2d. I bet out, somewhere in the neighborhood of 15k. He calls. The turn is an 8c and I fire out 42k. I remember this amount cause I had to used my 1k chips to make the bet. I was out of 5k ones. He deliberates for a moment before calling. Maybe he has a weak ace but it seems like more of a flush draw. I've played a few blind vs blind hands against him and he is totally capable of reraising the flop with a weak ace.
The river is a 3h and I shove. I'm sticking to my flush draw read, and I may very well have the best hand. He thinks for a while and asks me if I'm on a busted flush draw. He folds. New chip leader with about 260k. During the next hand he says he had an ace. So I have to tell him that he made a good lay down cause I had A5.
A few more short stacks bust and we get down to the final table pretty dang fast. I come to the table 2nd in chips with 319k and the chip leader is two to my left with 340k. Men is in the 9 seat with about 150k and the other good player, Louis Lee, was two to my right with 215k.
The official WSOPC press release on the final table can be read here.
The press release is a little inaccurate. I won 5 of the first 6 hands at the table, busting out the short stack too, and I never lost the chip lead at that point. I didn't have to do a lot. I just kept raising 2.5x the blind and they kept folding.
and Men pushed all in. I fold! AK vs Men's When we got down to 4 I pissed of Men by reraising him two hands in a row preflop with AQ and KK. He said, "You kept raising me with shit..." in his little munchin voice and it made me laugh. For the next few hands he just stares at me, muttering to himself, shooting icey daggers of death into my soul with this beady little eyes. Well, I can stoke this fire a little bit. I min raised Men's big blind from the button with 2s 4s. Small blind reraised and Men moves in. AK vs Men's AQ and he's a goner. Down to 3.
Again it didn't take long for me to get involved in a big pot with the guy 2nd in chips to my left. Blind vs blind again. In the small blind I raise it up with K4 and he calls. With a flop of 2 3 5 I lead out with another bet. He grabs some more chips and I decide to shove if reraises me. Of course he reraises and I put it all in. He asks me if I have AQ and he calls. WTF? top pair? A5? No. He had the ole' Q2 in what is probably one of the worst calls evar. So I need a 4, a 6, an ace or a king to win. Ding! 6 ball on the turn! Its over. The dealer throws a ace on the river for me too. I have a 6 card straight.
Heads up! Its been a while since I won a NL tournament. Probably a Binions one in the August was the last. I got a shirt for that one. At the circuit events they give you rings but they're generic and don't have the tournament engraved on the them. A little weak imo. Venetian at least put the date and tournaments on their trophies.
My opponent was Louis Lee. He was a good player, conservative and maybe a bit too tight, but a good player none the less. I would have preferred to get heads up with the other guy but with a five and a half to one chip lead it didn't matter. I kept telling myself, "Don't pull a Gus, don't pull a Gus." It seemed to work.
He asked if I wanted to talk about a deal but I told him that I don't do deals. He was fine with that. It wouldn't have even made sense to do a save with the chip lead that I had.
Also going in my favor was that I had Louis absolutely convinced that I had no idea what I was doing. When I was moved to the Hollywood Dave table the night before Louis was two to my left. When Dave asked if I played online I responded with, "I don't play much online." Which is mostly true but when he asked me about fold equity, I said, "I don't even know what that means."
A few hand later I pulled what appeared to be a stop and go and Louis mentioned it, telling me I executed it perfectly. Not like its hard to do that but my reply was, "What's a stop and go?"
Again, none of this really mattered at this point because I had 1.2 million to his 240k.
Heads up lasted all of 3 hands. We both folded the small blind once and on the 3rd hand I raised from the button with T9. Louis called and and the flop came T 7 4. I bet out and he called. The turn a 2 and I put him all in. He called pretty quick and I was worried he had a JT or QT. Nope. He had a T7. Oh well. Even if he doubles I still have a million in chips. As the dealer burned a card I stared at the deck. A nine would be nice. 9 of diamonds on the river. Ship it!
Even the dealer was shocked. He didn't want to look at Louis. He didn't even put the card up with the rest of the board. He just left it back by his tray.
Louis was a little dramatic but its too be excepted. I shook his hand. GG sir. GG.
Winner winner chicken dinner. I'm still on this stupid fast so I couldn't celebrate in the normal way and I almost left the ring at the cashier. There would be no dinner with friends. No drinks with Gavin. So I walked down to the Nike Store in the Forum shops and bought 3 new pairs of shoes.
This was one of the weirdest tournaments and weakest fields I've ever played. In retrospect it was the prefect day to play a $500 tournament in the middle of the strip. It was Sunday and all the internet kids would be playing online. There were mostly middle aged men, some of their wives, and tourist playing. I rarely showed a non-all in hand and I'm pretty sure I only opened up a 4 hands between 50k and the win. The last time I was all in preflop was in the 3rd level with AJ vs TT.
I never had any big hands. I only had AA once and KK twice during the whole tournament and all of those hands were won preflop. I only had one full house, when I flopped it against a drunk guy late on day 1 and I can't remember getting a flush at all. I might have had one but I can't remember because I'm light headed from not eating for 4 days. Whatever. A win is a win and 70k is 70k.
Next I'm off to Canada and the River Rock Casino for a couple of small buy in WPT events.
JDN
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