Heads up win, shoutout blues

1. April 2005 | Category: 50outs

Good news first: I won a heads-up tournament at Pokerstars, 64 players, $20 buyin. I think I really played well and got my share of good luck also. I was able to adjust on every opponent and select the right strategy, the games were lasting between 5 and 45 minutes. This was actually my very first heads up tournament and I felt very good about winning it although the won $448 got blasted in the following 30/60 session on stars in a few minutes when J7 made it 3 bets against my 99 and being agressive the whole way, just to catch a flush on the river… I love this game.

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I also played another $150+10 double shootout for a wsop seat. I was really patient and when there were only three left at the table I had about 8k of the availabe 13,5k so I was in good shape. Then I got TT busted by 77, catching a gutshot straight with a 5 on the river. Three hands later I lost QQ against 26, catching a gutshot straight with a 5 on the river. Same player. First time he was all-in, second time I was all-in (he had me covered by 10 chips). Oh well. You must really love this game to sit down again and continue on your strive to success I guess. Remember my post from last week? Where I was in commanding lead against two others in the same $150+10 double shooutout tournament and one player catched a club flush within a few hands two times aginast my top pair/top two pair? It was almost comical yesterday how similar the situations were. Actually it really hurted me, way to much to be a good sign. I guess spending 2k in the 30/60 game right thereafter must be seen in some conjunction to that… well, nobodys perfect and there are so many holes in my game and dicipline that it sometimes looks like I have… well, 50 outs!

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We are almost off to Vegas baby! Sunday we are leaving to the Bellagio Five Star World Poker Classic WPT final event (but staying at the Mirage). Tickets are there, passports checked, moneys changed, credit cards loaded to the max and excitement is already there, to. While our stay will last only one week if nothing really good will happen it is still great to return to Vegas. It is now 11 months we have not been there (WSOP 2004 being the last time) and we are hungry for action, show and adrenaline. I just hope it will not turn out to be so painfull like last year when (let me repeat this sad story for the x-th time) I was 20th in the $5,000 NLHE tournament with 18 paid and a nice stack and then loosing QQ against Barry Shulmann’s AKo (board xxx-x-K, arghhh) and David Pham’s AKo in the BB against my KK (board xAx-x-x, outch) to finish exactly there, 20th spot. This was hurting me about 45 minutes, an expericence I NEVER had before and did not had since (knock on wood here). Winning 28k over 4 days in 300/600 stud and then giving 26k of it back in one night (the very LAST night) did not help to make that trip a success, to. In other words: let’s just hope that this finish-in-the-most-hurting-way phase takes a little break (next week would be convinient dear fate) and we get out there winning some well appreciated money, dammit!

Stay tuned!