We were at the end of the first hour, and there were only about 50 players in the tournament. Devilfish and Marcel were probably the only two big pros there. I was kind of unexcited about the tourney and not in a great mood, because I thought it was going to be a lot bigger. I usually play fairly tight in big live tourneys, but I decided to play real aggressive and just play like I normally play online, <READMORE>because I knew if I lost there was plenty to do in Paris.
Third hand I had K
Q, and the flop comes with A7 and something else. The turn came a non diamond and I bet pretty big, and the lady who knocked me out of the $3k in Tunica with a straight flush against my full house called. The river came a blank, I bet big, and she folded.I built up some pretty big chips with hands like this. I got back to back full houses at one point and knocked two people out, and I was up to about 4 times my buy-in before the first level went up. I started getting a little cocky about it all, and this one guy started mumbling some stuff under his breath about me being an arrogant American and things like that. I finally asked him if he had a problem, and he just snapped at me, telling me what a jerk I am and all this. He went on about Iraq and all this, as if I had anything to do with that. So I actually got a 10 minute time out for swearing, because I swore back at this guy. I had to go sit in a corner for 10 minutes like kindergarten and get blinded out!
I was sitting there just steaming, because this guy had been so rude and then I was the one who got a time out. So I decided that if that guy bet, I would go all in every time until he caught me or I knocked him out. He was a really tight player. The blinds were at 200-400 and he made it 800 to go, and I said, “I’m all in!” and he started yelling at me, saying, “you didn’t look at your cards!” and I said, “I don’t need to!” I said, “every time you bet, I’m all in.” He folded, and I flipped over K 4.
About 20 minutes later, we’re playing, and he’s still playing super tight. He makes it 800 to go again and I look down at, wouldn't you know, pocket fives. Normally I probably wouldn’t even call, but this time I said, “I call and check dark!” The dealer flipped over 8 8 5. I looked at him and he thought about it, and he bet 2000, which was almost half his stack. I thought about it for a while. I said, “For America, I call.” Next card was a 2. I checked, he checked. River was another 2. I said, “How’s that AK feeling? I’m all in for America.” I splashed my chips into the pot. He thought about it for probably 20 seconds, and I called the host and said I wanted the clock. He ended up calling, and I flipped over pocket fives and won the pot.
This next story might be the ugliest in the history of poker. I made it to the final table and was chip leader with 57k. Most of the stacks at the table were really low. My strategy was to just play real tight against the bigger stacks and try to knock out the little stacks.
My theory kind of went out the window though in the second hand, when I was on the small blind and got a pair of queens. The blinds were 400-800, and because I really didn’t want a caller, I made it 3000 to go. The big blind called. He had been a maniac the whole tournament, playing horrible hands. He would play K 4 like it was A K. The flop came 6 7 Q. I check, and he thought about it for a sec and said, “I’m all in,” and I said, “well I call then.” He took his cards and threw them down, showing A 4. The turn and river were 5 and 3, and he made a straight. He went from 40k to almost 100k, and I went to around 15k. I ended up getting 5th place because of this horrible beat.
Anyways, it was a good experience. I hope these stories entertained you, and best of luck to you all.
P0ker H0
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