Live Tourney & Full Tilt Holdem/Omaha -- So Close!

Its been a while since I've played a live tournament from playing online so much that I though I'd go check out a tourney at a local Poker club. The tourney was $350 buy-in with a $150 re buy or add on, so pretty much it was a $500 buy-in with 20,000 starting chips and the blinds starting at 25/50. As I registered and drew my seat number I saw some familiar faces at my table, one which was a good friend of mine Azim... Me and Azim go back years from when I first starting play poker, he was one of the first guys I met in the poker community. To make a long story short for about the first year I played poker I played with Azim going from tournaments to live games nightly. During that time I learned a lot from Azim and we were able to discuss hands, mistakes and strategies. Getting back to the tournament I started off great doubling up right away with JJ to a canon trying to bluff me out of the pot. A few hands later I ran into a cooler when I flopped a set of deuces running into the nut flush... from there on in I went into grinder mode trying to pick up as many chips as I could from a pretty passive table. I stayed pretty average stack the whole tourney till we got down to about 14 players. I got myself into a race situation with pocket 7's which went down in flames to K,Q off suit, crippling me pretty badly. I managed to squeeze my way to the final table along with Azim sitting directly to my right. I rarely ever play to just get in the money, always having the mindset to win at all costs.. but this was one of those situations where I had such a crippled stack that making it to the money (6th) would be a task on its own. I stole blinds when I could but the cards went cold at the wrong time making me fold A LOT more then I ever do with a short stack. A bad beat took place with 7 players remaining getting into 6th place and cashing $800. I got knocked out by Azim of all people! lol.. He raised on the puck with A,10 and I glanced down and squeezed one Ace and shoved it, unfortunately when I opened the hand the other card was a 5. I figured I'd rather lose my chips to Azim then anyone else, he did manage to use those chips usefully winning the tournament cashing over $6,000. All and all I felt pretty good for my first live tournament in a while, didn't make too many mistakes and felt really confident at the table. Besides winning making the final table was a goal I set before this tourney and was able to accomplish it. With the WSOP in Vegas coming up in a few months I'm going to do my best to play as many live tournaments as I can to get some practise in.

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Tonight I signed up and registered for the $320 buy-in Full Tilt Online Poker Series tournament. This tournament is a little different then the usual ones I play because it was Pot Limit Holdem/Pot Limit Omaha tourney. Pot Limit opposed to No Limit means at any point you can only bet whats in the pot. And Pot Limit Omaha is similar to holdem except that you get 4 cards in your hand opposed to 2 cards. Every 10 mins the game would rotate from Holdem to Omaha and back & forth. The tournament started with 645 players with a first prize of $45,200. I really got into the zone early in the tournament accumulating chips without too many problems. I really took advantage of the Omaha rounds finding a lot of weak players not playing well in these rounds. Holdem players tend to play very loose/aggressive when playing Omaha gambling a lot more then they usually would. Managing to flop top set(3 of a kind) a couple times I really grabbed some chips and was in the top 10 with 50 player remaining. At this point of the tournament I go moved to a very very tough table with about 3-4 solid Internet pros and a couple live pros. I tightened up my game while at this table grinding away till I got moved, this took a bit of a beating on my stack but was still sitting with the average chip stack. We got down to 18 players and I was 11th in chips at the time when I ran into this situation. I was in the small blind with A,Q,J,4 double suited. It was folded to me in the small blind while the big blind was one of the chip leaders of the tournament. Whenever I get down to 2 tables left in a tourney I really change gears here and try to put myself in a position to win the tournament. A lot of weak players make the mistake of tightening up there play just trying to make the final table, well you might make the final table but will most likely be knocked out right away. Whats the point in that? To try and make a little extra money? I think that's stupid and I've had so much success in tournaments b/c I play to finish FIRST and FIRST only! So getting back to the hand, I hammered into the chip leader hoping to grab some chips to build on this average stack. The big blind got very lucky flopping trips with 5,5,2,4 to a 8,4,4 flop. I flopped the nut flush draw with this flop and bet the pot right away, with trips he obviously puts me all-in. At this point I had over 70% my stack committed to the pot leaving me no option but calling getting over 4-1 on my money. I end up losing the pot getting knocked out 17th of 645. 17 place paid out approx. $1,003.00 for my efforts. I really felt like I was going to win this tournament at all stages but it doesn't always work out as we'd like it too.

Overall I had 2 pretty good showings in these tournaments. Although I didn't win I was able to cash in both of them and minimized mistakes & gambling situations. This week I'm going to get in as many hands as I can and hopefully win a big one!

We'll see you all in a couple days and I'll let you know how its going. As always feel free to post any comments regarding any of the stuff I right in my blogs. Just click on the comments link underneath each blog and you can read comments by others and also post your own.

Take it easy...
Jay