Out of Main Event, Huge Online Score

My Vegas curse seems to continue. I played in $500 and $1000 side events and went semi-deep but did not make it to the money. In the $2500 main event, things looked like they were going well early on, as I was able to increase my stack from $15,000 to around $22,000 in the first level. I was card dead for a couple of levels and I coasted through without getting too fancy until the weirdest hand of the trip.

I'm sitting with around $20,000. Blinds were $200/$400 with a $50 ante. I'm on the button with Jh9h. Folds to a player in MP who always 4x's with semi-strong hands and 3x's with monsters. He makes it $1600 to go, and the player in the cutoff calls him. There was $4300 in the pot now and I was pretty confident that I could take it down right here. I make it $5500 to go. SB folds, BB insta-pushes all in for $12,000 total. The other players quickly fold, and it's back to me. I have no choice but to call the extra $6500, even if I had 23 offsuit, since there is over $20,000 in the pot. I call, and he proudly flips over Ad8d. I wasn't sure whether to be happy or upset, I was expecting to see an overpair, but now I was in a 55/45 for a huge pot that would put me over $35,000 if I could win it. I pretty much gave up when I saw that my opponent flopped two pair, but when I looked closely, I had an open-ended straight flush draw on the AT8 board with 2 hearts. I couldn't hit and I was down to $8000. You have to love when people 4-bet Ace rag with zero fold equity.

At least that wasn't a bad beat! Check out my exit hand. I'm now down to $8000. Folds to me on the button and I make it $1600 with K9. SB folds, BB looks at his cards and then asks how much I have left. I tell him around another $6000 and he flat calls. Flop comes K44. He checks, I check. Turn 8. He checks, I bet $2500, he calls. River Q. He checks, I put my last $4000 in and he insta calls, I'm like wtf? I show my hand and he flips over QQ!

I'm not feeling too well after this, and I head up to my room. I open Pokerstars and see that the $200+rebuys is about to start in 5 minutes. I register for it and 5 hours later I find myself at the sickest online final table I've ever been at. lilloldem954, shaundeeb, ch0ppy, SNoOoWMAN, charder30 and a couple of other good players. There was only one weak spot at the table. I seemed to make the right decision every time at the final table, except for when I ran AQ into AK for half of my stack and lost that. I ended up HU with the weak spot, and even though he had a 3 to 1 chip lead, it only took me around 20 hands to seal the deal. Looking back, it was the only tournament I played that day, and I was never all in once for my tournament life in a coinflip or as an underdog.

PokerStars Tournament #77445254, No Limit Hold'em
Buy-In: $200.00/$15.00
314 players
Total Prize Pool: $239,400.00
Tournament started - 2008/02/24 - 21:00:00 (ET)
Tournament finished - 2008/02/25 - 03:07:04 (ET)
1: mysterio6044 (Ottawa), $52,668.00 (22%)
2: madh_18 (sao paulo), $36,149.40 (15.10%)
3: charder30 (Annapolis), $24,658.20 (10.30%)
4: ch0ppy (Waterloo), $19,152.00 (8%)
5: SNo0oWMAN (fort myers), $14,364.00 (6%)
6: shaundeeb (troy), $11,251.80 (4.70%)
7: lilholdem954 (Coral Springs), $8618.40 (3.60%)
8: grindnitout (blacksburg), $6224.40 (2.60%)
9: eyekx (Oakland), $3830.40 (1.60%)

Thanks to this win, the trip ended up being a huge success! If I was back home I would probably never have played this tournament, considering I rarely play on weekends. I had a great time in Vegas, and I can't wait to go back this summer. I looked into real estate, and I couldn't believe some of the prices. We saw some previews for some auctions, and there were nice villas and huge condos all starting at $99,000! Of course they won't sell for that little, but we're probably looking at 20%-40% savings.

We ended up staying at the Venetian, and I was very impressed. Their rooms are all suites, with sunken living rooms and plasmas. The rooms are actually nicer than the Bellagio's. You have to spend over $800 a night at the Bellagio to get the same room that you get for $249 at the Venetian. The Venetian is the biggest 5 star resort in the world, and that was my only problem with it. It was around a 15 minute walk from the front lobby to our room, and 2 different sets of elevators. Next time I would make sure to ask for a room in the closest tower to the lobby. Also, I think I found my new favourite sushi restaurant in the world. For anybody who goes to Vegas, you must eat at Tao in the Venetian and order the Crispy Spicy Yellowtail Avocado Roll. Heaven, I tell you!

I'm not sure if I will be traveling to any tournaments in March, my next confirmed trip will be to Monte Carlo for the EPT Grand Final. It will be held from April 12th-17th and I'm really excited at taking my shot at making the final table for the 3rd year in a row!

My latest CardPlayer article is out and can be viewed at: http://www.cardplayer.com/magazine/article/17275