I decided last minute to take a shot at trying to qualify for Paradise's Conquest promotion. I figured if I won it, it would force me to workout my schedule to make it.

During this tournament, I was really surprised by the sheer number of mistakes that I felt my opponents made at the Final Table. There are many sites out there by guys like JohnnyBax, Sheets, NSXT2, and GreenPlastic, where they continually display their great poker skills. Unfortunately, I'm not quite as good as they are, so, I'll focus on trying to point out some common errors being made by lesser players. I hope you find it useful.

I made it to the FT in about 8th place. Luckily, the field was relatively small, so the blinds really weren't that big of an issue yet. I definitely felt good about my chances, but had some work to do. I remained a relative short stack right up until there were four people left. I got lucky with a few bad calls by my opponents, and then got lucky with a few timely cards.

I have outlined my comments below by hand number – thanks to Mindwise and PokerXFactor for their wonderful replayer. I have loaded each of my most recent tourney wins into the player for review purposes – it is unbelievably helpful to watch yourself play in this manner. Anyway, here's my analysis:

Link: Click Here

You gotta register with PokerXFactor.com, I believe, to utilize the link.

Hand#:
3. Yes, you SHOULD fold KJ to a raise

8. He only min raised from 400 to 800 – why bother. I'm gonna call with 910o. Rhino makes a rather generic continuation bet only 50 more than pre-flop bet. I raise to represent the ace with 5 outs to beat the A. Weak play by Rhino.

11. Kshifrin opens for 3x BB raise with K9s – either a REALLY strong player or REALLY weak player. Has pot odds to call the all-in, so I'm not sure about his big call judgements. Note Dalinoth pushing all-in with A10o. This is a VERY BAD play by Dalinoth – he will get called because of his stack size relative to kshifrin and will need to flop something 95% of the time. A10 really sucks.

12. Nothing but a position blind steal.

13. AA may as well have been 76o – interestingly, I believe most people's 2nd hand in a row to be strong. A 3rd is usually very strong, or Gavin Smith.

14. Some players I would raise with 88 in position, but never a player prone to call. I also NEED to flop an 8 to double up. No fancy moves here because the SITUATION is completely different than the previous hand vs. the same player.

15. DippyDough's demise. He standard raises to 1800 with AA. He gets re-raise to 6000 which you love to see with AA. OMG – two flat calls of a 10x BB raise. This table is interesting to say the least. Dippy pushes all=in and by that time, everyone has to call. J on river takes out dippy. This does help my chances, but I hate to see anyone lose to these kinds of players. What did Rhino have – AK maybe?. GG dippy. You see why aces are good to play versus one other player.

16. I flop a monster – top pair with a flush draw. I check it because I want and NEED to double up. Sometimes you have to play differently to get chips. I do get him to bluff at it. You have to realize that I only gambled what was in the pot for the chance to double up. If a non-spade overcard came, I would be willing to get to the showdown cheaply. Otherwise, I'm playing to trap him.

17. Another pocket pair – woo hoo, poker is easy. With him having less than 1/2 my stack, I want to play JJ all-in for his whole stack.

20. Pocket sixes – I am content to take a flop and try to flop a monster. If I were shorter-
stacked, I would try to end the hand right there treading water till I get a hand that I want to CALL an all-in with. I challenge Rhino's continuation bet and eventually decide that he has me beat.

26. Pocket 2's – would love to flop a set, but still no luck. Again, I challenge Rhino's continuation bet and burn some more chips.

28. This hand was a REALLY big gamble. I had yet to test these guys with an all-in. I was relying a bit on the squeeze play. I wouldn't have minded a call from Kshifrin, but didn't really want one from Chosen. There was 4700 chips out there and I felt I could make them fold for the extra 14k call.

33. With A5s, I don't really want to raise and then have kshifrin push because he thinks I'm weak. Kshifrin might try something with a worst hand than A5s and a big push could make him fold a hand better than A5s. I just wanted the blinds.

40. I pick up a real hand with a suspect player betting into me. I really wanted him to call with a dominated A in this situation. I knew the player was totally capable of making that play. If he called me with a pair or two live cards, I was gonna have to get lucky. Amazingly, he calls off 35% of his stack with A7o against a player that hadn't shown any bad hands. This hand changed the tournament. My earlier push may have had something to do with it, as well. I now have a legitimate chance to win.

41. Notice that kshifrin did not have the courage to follow up with a continuation bet with AQ. If you raise the hand out of position, get a flop like JJ6, you've got to follow up. You still have the best hand 90% of the time. He's starting to play timid.

44. Another premium hand, another min-raise from Rhino. I gotta push on him and hope to get called by a weak ace. The J10 call was a little weak, but he felt like he needed to gamble a bit. He was live and not really in too bad of shape. My hand holds at a key time and I got a real chip lead finally.

49. 77 on button – standard raise. Flat call is a good sign by BB – def no monster at this stage. Another weak lead out bet – that ain't workin on me. I raise it significantly, get flat called again. I automatically think flush or straight draw. I flat call on turn not knowing if I'm beat, but the bet is too small to get me to fold anyway – 1100 into a 13k pot – I've only got to be ahead 1 out of 12 times to breakeven on the call. Then an 800 bet? Turns out he was value betting his 9 high. If you are gonna bluff, make it a little larger. Although, the small bet on the river could have just been a bet to find out if I was also on a draw and might fold it for nothing.

51. I change up my game a bit by just flat calling in SB with A10o. I wouldn't have minded a raise, but I felt like I needed to hit a sneaky hand to de-stack kshifrin. Boring hand, but just wanted to point out that I don't always play big hands the same way.

53. A3o may have been the best hand there, but with these 2 players, I don't mind them duking it out and getting me one step closer to the win. I'm not concerned about one of them getting a chip lead on me.

54-58. I have slowed down here considerably folding SB's and not bluffing at pots that I could have taken with a bet. Again, I don't mind those two taking each other out. I feel like I can win heads up against either player 8 out of 10 times.

58. One of the more interesting hands of the FT. Honestly, I didn't play it very well, but got saved by the poker gods. I just wasn't convinced that he had me beat. Preflop pretty standard. He leads out for 1000 into a 5250 pot. I've got two overs plus a 5 as potential outs and the board is rainbow, so I re-raise him to find out exactly where I am. He raise me another 1000, so I may be behind, but I can't really fold with my outs. On the turn, he bets out 3500 into a 13250 pot. I'm not sure where I am, but I figure out a reason to call because the 3500 is such a small portion of my stack – basically meaningless compared to the 17k I could win if the right card comes. I also have position, but this is his first real substantial bet. I am really confused at this point and will not call a big bet on the river. I am a total luck sack as the five comes out. The 1500 river bet is an obvious flat call with the dummy end of the straight and the 3 flush on board. The 1500 bet was either really dumb, or a good defensive bet to keep me from putting pressure on him.

61. Notice the interesting flop bet of 6k when the pot is only $4,550 after lots of really small bets. It stood out as being funny, but I felt he was pot committed with what was probably a 6 in his hand.

67. I got AJ on the button and wouldn't mind getting it all-in with the small stack. With the bigger stack player between us, I just made a standard raise hoping for the small stack push. He just flat calls me and then leads out with a 2k bet into a 5650 pot while I'm still in the "bust the small stack mode". I semi-bluff with my hand with two overs, a backdoor flush draw, and two backdoor straight draws. I was very lucky to have him call and for my hand to still be ahead. The decision turned out to be exactly correct, but obviously I was fortunate. I believe he still had plenty to play with. Don't ever give up.

73. I played this hand pretty badly. I don't mind the minimum bet on the flop because I had been betting almost every hand. The turn brought the open-ended straight draw and I decided to keep betting – which is not the worst decision headsup, but I should have been in the grind down the player mode and taken the free card to hit something big. It ended up costing me more chips when he re-raised me. I should have known that kshifrin had something, but I bluffed at the river anyway. This was an ugly hand – a little too over-aggressive.

74. Heads up, any A is good. Hitting any pair on the flop is good, but I chose to represent more strength than just the bottom pair by check-raising. He made it clear that he had me beat and I laid it down.

80. A premium hand and good pre-flop action to build a big pot. Not so good of a flop, though. I check becaues a K in his hand is a real possibility. I don't worry too much about straight and flush draws when heads up. He pays off a little bet on the turn with nothing. I was lucky there that he didn't have a K.

81. The final hand. I've got the K6o monster and raise on the basis of K high. On the flop, I've got an overcard and a gut-shot str8 draw so I follow his check with a 3500 bet into a 6550 pot. He pops me to 10k which is a good play, but it lets me know that if I can hit something, I can probably end it right here. I pay the 6500 getting 2-1 odds on my money. I'm taking the worst of it definitely, but 6500 is not that big of a deal relative to the stacks and I feel like I can grind him back down if I don't give up any more chips on the river. Bingo, the magic gut-shot shows up. He calls his last 20k, which I think was a bad move with only top pair, but hey I'll take it.

I would love to get CONSTRUCTIVE input from anyone else on these hands. Poker is all about continuing to learn and trying different styles.

It was my pleasure putting together this analysis. It really forces me to concentrate and focus on getting better.