Well the title pretty much says it all. This year's World Poker Finals at Foxwoods just started for me and already I have done what I set out to do and then some. I had one simple goal in mind, get the terrible taste out of my mouth from my choke job last year in the $300 Shootout. I decided to skip the Shootout this year and play in the $400NLHE event on 10/21/2009. Boy did I get what I wanted out of it this year.
I've got a tone of funny stories from this event so I'll do my best to get everything up in blog form. The first couple of hours in the MTT were as expected slow and uneventful. Starting stacks were 5K each, blinds at 25/50, increase every 50 minutes. The structure was a little fast paced early but it provided for a fantastic structure late in the event. I kept track of my chip stacks at the end of every level in a little notepad, not really sure why I did to be honest but I remember watching Raymer do it and for whatever reason it made sense to me to keep track.
I chipped up very nicely and was able to keep my M hovering around 9-12 range for most of the first few levels. I had very few hands to real speak of. I was just playing hands late in position, stealing blinds, seeing cheap flops, and trying to take down as many small pots as possible. I was cruising right along and even the dealers took note. After I shipped another pot having raised on the button and taking the blinds, the dealer leaned into me and goes, "You're making this look easy." All I could think was I hoped no one else heard that and took notice that I've probably had air every time.
Things went great right up until my table broke. I had to move from a table where maybe every 5th pot was raised preflop to every single pot being raised. Just before the dinner break I had an M of 4 in the BB. Folded to the SB who limped in and I shipped my stack with 88. I got a speech from the SB telling me how big a mistake I was making shoving on the BB there. He then mucked his hand and continued to "teach" me about my mistake. We got one more hand in where it folded to me and I shoved from the SB again with 88 and again walked away unscathed. With 125 players left at dinner break, 80 of them would be paid, I was simply happy to have played far better than I did the year before. I felt proud of simply playing this MTT for real, and even if I bubbled in 81st I would have said oh well (obv easy to say now because I actually made a very deep run but I was calling people and saying this during dinner).
I managed to get my crappy stack into the MTT when I finally found a hand. I had AdAh UTG+1 and decided to limp in. Both the blinds were my only takers. I've made this play online many times before as a short stack against weaker players, the idea being I'd rather try to with a big pot and run the risk of getting stacked by a small PP or suited connectors than just ship it and take the blinds. The flop came 4h5cQh and the SB shipped. The BB tanked before making the lay down and I snapped off. The SB had the nightmare hand 5h3h. Thankfully the turn and river bricked off and I was able to bring myself back up to respectability.
There were many many more sick details that I want to save for another blog post but I'll cliffnotes this one. SPOILER ALERT: I ended up chopping the event HU for $50,272 and the official 2nd place finish. Also, I did take an even chop as a chip leader. I will explain my logic and how I got to the FT in the next blog, stay tuned.