WPT North American Championship - 5th place - $196,851.00

One day I am going to win a major tournament. I might be 75 years old, but I will do it. As I write this report, I'm sitting in the Philadelphia airport waiting for my flight to Vegas. My flight leaves in one hour, so I'm going to recap the last few days of the tournament fairly quickly.

If you were following the tournament, you probably read about my call on Day 2 with Kigh high in a $100k+ pot. Instead of writing out my thought process, there's an interview I did with Amanda Leatherman about the hand on worldpokertour.com, I'll try to embed it into this post later.

On Day 3, it was a rollercoaster with me going up to $650k, made an ill-timed bluff, then down under $100k when my KK got cracked by AQ, then back up to $424k before the end of the day.

On Day 4, my stack quickly grew as I knocked out Vivek Rajkumar when I flopped a flush against his aces and he shoved for 2.5x the pot. The turn was an Ace but he didn't fill up on the river and I was up to $1.7 million. I proceeded to go on a tear, and won a race against Erik Seidel with AK against his QQ. I was at $3.2 million at dinner break with 9 people left and chipleader. After dinner, we played for another 2 hours before we got down to the final six, and I don't think I even picked up the blinds once. I would raise and get re-raised and have to fold, or I would raise, and my c-bet would get raised and I would have to fold. It was all small pots but I dropped down to $1.85 million by the time we went to the final table.

At the final table, I had so many opportunities to double up but nothing went my way. I had Gavin Smith on my right, and at $15k/$30k blinds he would make it $85k. I called on the button twice, with 88 and QhTh, and both times was re-raised by an amateur player in the BB to an even $200k. So both times it was $115k more to me into a $250k pot and it was almost 100% that the BB was shoving for over $1 million on the flop. With the 88, the flop came J97 and he shoved, I thought forever and folded, I can't wait to see it on TV. I think he had QQ or KK, but I could be wrong and he might have got a little happy with AK. With the QhTh, the door card was a Q, but the flop came out KQ7 and he pushed all in again. I put him on AK or AA and folded. I thought he was a pretty tight player, but he played his last hand against Gavin so badly, putting in $1.7 million with 77, that I'm starting to rethink my folds.

I was quickly down to 1 million at the first break and in rough shape with the blinds going up to $20k/$40k. I knew I had to pick up some chips, and I was just hoping my timing would be right. A few hands in, the online pro Ryan makes it $110k to go, and Gavin flat calls from the SB. I look down at 64 in the BB. There is now $280k in the pot, and I decide to move in. I know Gavin calls with any two cards preflop, so I'm really only worried about Ryan. He folds, and Gavin quickly folds. The very next hand, Kathy Liebert opens to $110k from the cutoff, and she hasn't played a hand in a long time and has been blinding out. I know she desperately needs to pick up some chips, Gavin flat calls again from the button. Now there's $300k in the pot and I look down at 9d5d. I quickly move in, before I can talk myself out of it. :) Another thing is, Gavin and Kathy probably thought I was full of it last hand, but they must be thinking "Ok, he may be crazy, but not crazy enough to do that twice in a row with air."

Now I'm up to $1.6 million and I have some momentum behind me. A few hands later, Gavin makes it $110k, and I look down at JJ. I bump it up to $400k and it folds back to Gavin and he quickly folds. I show my hand, knowing that when someone shows a good hand, it looks like they are setting up a bluff. I'm just praying for a big hand, and 3 hands later, I get it! QQ in the big blind, here we go! An older gentleman, who has been playing super tight, but usually opening for 3x the blinds, makes it $200k to go utg (5x the blinds). From playing with him the previous day, I knew he had the tendency to entice action with a monster, and overbet to protect vulnerable hands. So now his range in my head is pocket 55-JJ, AK, and AQ (mayyybe AJ at the very low end of his range). It folds to me and I instantly push all-in, knowing there's a very likely chance I'm getting called, especially with the image I've set up. He thinks for about 5-10 seconds, in my head I'm saying "call call call", and he calls! I confidently flip up my QQ and he shows AK! Nooooooo, the only hand he could have that I did not want to see! :( I turned around to my friends with a disgusted look on my face, and they all thought he had Aces because they couldn't see the hand. I yelled over to them that he had AK and they breathed a sigh of relief and started yelling for a Queen. Unfortunately, the door card was an Ace, and no matter how hard they yelled, the Queen wouldn't come. Just like that it was all over yet again. The first time in the whole tournament that I was all in and called for all of my chips, but it was not meant to be.

I want to thank everyone who made the trip to Niagara to cheer me on at the final table. We had around 20 people, family and friends from Ottawa, Toronto, and Cleveland. I was trying so hard for that elusive win, but I still had a great time none the less. Next time, next time...

A few fun facts from my five final table appearances:

- the player who knocked me out at the final table went on to win the tournament every time

- I've never won a single race or an all in when I was behind since the one time when I beat Marcel Luske's 88 with Jd7d at my first final table

- in the first four final tables, my placing was always an even number: 4th, 6th, 6th, 2nd. When we were down to 5 people in Niagara, I said to Gavin, "Well, I can't be the next one out because I always finish in the even numbers. He replied "Well, I guess that means you can't finish first then!" LOL! Well, at least I broke the even number curse. :)

I'm on my way to Vegas for the 2008 Caesars Palace Classic. This update is getting too long as it is... I'll try to do another update this weekend. Thanks for reading!