Aruba

I'm sitting in the Miami airport recollecting on what turned out to be a very enjoyable weekend. I didn't cash the 5k which was the only tourney i played but I thought I played well for most of the tourney, especially day 1. I ended up with the toughest table draw in the room on day 2. Around the table to my left was matt brady who is the defending champion, roothlus, a good online guy that i didnt know, a good live pro with a ton of chips from LA that i met who was played well and tough, tmay, crazyzachary, a couple more good online pros and then bigegypt to my right. I held my own for most the of day but was getting rivered in pretty muc every significant pot I got into. The hand I feel that really cost me most of my chips and my momentum in the tourney was the following:

I opened EP with 87cc to 3k at 600/1200, tmay flatted the button and zach made it 8600 from the sb, which was really tiny considering we were all about 70k deep. I couldn't resist calling and tmay called as well. I though zach didn't have a huge hand but a pretty good hand just trying to take control of the pot. It came out K82 rainbow and he bet 9k into a 28k pot. I called and tmay folded. Turn was a 3 and zach checked. I was pretty sure I had the best hand but was undecided on whether to check behind and try to show down or play a more aggressive line and bet about 1/3 of my stack which woulda put me in a tough spot if he shoved. Looking back on it I don't think he shoves many hands to that bet so betting may have been the right play but I decided to check. The river was a Q and he bet 9k again into a pot that was now around 46k. I thought about shoving as a bluff because I put him on AQ but decided against it and decided he wasn't bluffing so i folded and later he told me he did have AQ. Oh wellz.

I did end up staying a couple extra days in aruba because my good friend and current cardplayer POY leader eric 'basebaldy' baldwin made the final table. He was the chip leader 4 handed at one point but couldn't find the cards to get the momentum. He eventually declined a chop when he was 2 of 4, which would have given him about 350k but I thought it was the right move since I felt and I'm sure he felt he was the best player left in the tournament. He then turned up the heat and starting 3 betting quite a bit and with that image he was forced into a really hard spot for a huge pot where he 3bet a10 and brandon hall shoved and he eventually called and brandon had JJ and held for the CL. He busted shortly after losing AQ to robert mizrachi's A7 and was knocked out in 4th for 126k. Even though it was a disappointing finish I really thought he made the correct long term move to decline the chop and I saw the fire in him wanting to win it which is what you need to be successful. Once again a great tourney for him and an unbelievable year. He just got enough points to pass up Yevginey Timoshenko for the POY lead and he's going to be grinding pretty hard in the next few months to go for the title. Really pulling for him, GL sir!

It was a great weekend besides all the poker, had a lot of fun hanging out with many old poker friends as well as meeting a bunch of new guys who are very good guys and classy dudes. It's really great to have a good poker community of pros and good friends out there to see for each live tournament you play. Had a great time by the beach and also did a dune buggy excursion on the far side of the island that was a blast. I did have an unfortunate jetski accident in which mattg's and my jetski collided sending us both to the water. My arm was pretty badly bruised up and bled for awhile but I felt fortunate that it wasn't worse than that because he pretty much landed his jetski on me mid-air going about 40 mph.

I plan on playing mostly online for the next month or 2 besides maybe a trip to vegas for the caesers classic main event. I'm making a trip back to wisconsin for halloween and to hopefully catch the packers/vikings game at lambeau field. Should be a fun trip. Hopefully I'll have some big scores to report on soon.

-TT