2014 Poker Events in Vegas

2014 has been the year of poker for me personally.  I play poker and love to play whenever I can, and up until this year it has only been recreational at best with some cash ins at the local clubs from time to time in their tourneys and shoot outs..(cash game played tourney style).  I decided to step up a bit for 2014 and enter some bigger tournaments including the mega stack in Vegas (June 26th). My goal is to cash in that game and if the payout is large enough, parlay a portion of the winnings into the main televised event that everyone watches on ESPN.  This plan includes a one way ticket to the RIO and an open ended possibility to turn officially pro for the year.
Now I know these goal are lofty, but it is one of those gut feelings, the pre destined mindset that has made me a bit more determined this year to have a life changing direction. I feel that my play has been solid enough to make it big in this game of skill. Forget all the bad beat scenarios, forget those unlucky river losses, and go do what I have been created to do. Win a big game!  (I will define what that means in a later post)

After my flight out on June 25th to enter my first official event, I will try and do a bit more blogging as well of the entire experience. As I am not much of a writer I will probably miss a few things only to catch up on them a month from now.My plan is to also have a successful blog or several along the way this year. I figure it would be about poker life, but who knows what the end game will bring? I am guessing most successful poker blogs are about people who are already "there" or successful in some way.  This blog is a bit more blue collar. No trust fund baby to be found here. In fact I am basically putting a lot on the line to make a life change here. Not by maxing out credit cards or anything like that, it is just that I am turning 46 in September and  we all know how short life can be. It is now or never! I will be able to play in the seniors tourney in the next four years....8(.... Not digging that idea. I feel to young for that but to old to do a lot of XYZ if you know what I mean. The field of play is getting younger and younger and I will need all my faculties to keep up soon.

Card Dead can still Win

I have droned on about getting beat with a river card for quite a while now. It was the main topic of conversation for at least a frustrating long two months worth of play. But this last Friday changed that focus with the most unusual win of my career.  I think it went to round 17 before ending the night in a icm chop with me clinching 27 percent of the prize pool on top of the fifth place guarantee added to it.  It was after 3 am and the group agreed to do it. I ended up with the chip lead at 27% of the 2.4million chips available. Now nothing was unique except the fact that I actually won less than a dozen hands the whole tournament? Early on I was just plain card dead playing my playable hands to dead flops to fold afterwards. By round 8/9 I was in the less than 15 big blinds shove all in mode with the best hand. The first all in potential was my big blind with 9/4 but I opted to fold and then woke up with A/10 suited that held to double me up one time giving me 26 more big blinds to see. Two hands later I woke up with the same hand against the same player who raised preflop with A/7 to my A/10 doubling me up once again.

Up to round 8/9 I still had only played a dozen losing hands at this point.

Still managing the table short stack I was able to steal 6 player calls with an all in on my pocket tens. Happy to have over 20 big blinds at this point I played basically nothing while watching my stack dwindle with increasing antes. As other players made moves against each other I saw big stacks get bigger while I maintained a very short stack of 20 something big blinds for at least 3 more rounds. Somehow, getting to the payout size of 18 left in the field made me feel like I dodged the ultimate bullets having won les than 6 hands the whole tourney. I was just happy to get my money back at this point with do many unplayable hands.....

As luck would have it a couple players getting knocked out at once several times whittled the field down to a final table with me getting to somehow slip into the tenth spot low stacked. Just before that I finally woke up with pocket 8s on a weird middle position that I elected a call with three prior callers and four behind me that called for a family pot. Flopped a set and made a pot size bet that everyone folded to.., strange hand indeed at that stage of the game where everyone was playing all in or nothing..,

Best first hand with one prior caller found me with J/10 off suit at the final table. I elected to make my first shove with a caller behind me Q/10 off suit. Feeling disgusted at the poor timing and a dead ten I watched the board reel off an 8-9 to give me hope before exiting. Then turned a queen to complete my first lucky double up at the final table. As I watched two other players exit before me I started to realize that getting my money back all the way to the eighth spot was going to happen for sure, and I wanted to double that by making it to the seventh. At this point playing tight was already a theme for this tourney because I really never had any hands to play and folding was easy. Other than my lucky J/10 win I did not see anything suited or connecting in any shape or form the whole tourney. Pocket tens and eights were the only playable hands and they both won with getting A/10 twice and winning. Basically I was feeling lucky at this point for not having hands to lose with and unlucky all at the same time for seeing do few playable hands.

Next hand finally gave me A/k in the small blind with a all in shove from A/7 to give me another double up. I had about 150k in chips with 10k big blinds at this point.

The chip leader was to my left and I had the button. With four people in the hand including the chip leader I get A/2 spades and elect to call on the button. The flop came Q -8 spades and a 2 clubs.  I shove all in with my nut flush draw and the chip leader calls with Q/10 clubs. Spiking the 4 of spades on the turn gave me the chip lead in two hands and that was all she wrote as I played small ball while a couple more players exited the arena unti we hit down to five. We played another round until 3 am then finall chopped her up. 

I was probably most apt to chop at this point as I didn't want to get to greedy for being allowed to make it as far as I did with so few played hands..