Event 22 at Caesars Palace - Part II

Coming back at 2pm for the final table we were met with a huge problem as Caesars hadn't taken into consideration the mass 700+ field for the following mega stack event. After the idea of an 11 handed final table being thrown into the garbage we finally got things going at around 3pm.

With the payouts being very top heavy, everyone was aiming high:
1st - $22,129
2nd - $11,423
3rd - $5,711
4th - $4,997
5th - $4,284
6th - $3,570
7th - $2,856
8th - $2,142
9th - $1,428
10-12th - $857
13-15th - $714
16-18th - $571
19-27th - $428
28-36th - $286

After losing the 11th player we were down to the final table and I re-drew for seat 1 having 120,00 in chips, meaning I was in the small blind for the first hand. With blinds at 5k-10k a middle position player made it 40k to go and was faced with a re-raise all-in for around 200k. Peeling my cards in the small I sweated in the small blind and went POW and shoved my stack in there. With the middle postion player calling and tabling and the re-raiser tabling I did the old 'one time' chant as the the dealer was ready to spread the board. When the board ran out I tripled up to 396,000 and was back in the game.

Play slowed for a while before I knocked out 9th and 8th when I called there all-ins with vs and the board ran out , and vs on a board and was up to 680,000 as play reached seven-handed.

I then eliminated 7th as well when I called his all-in from the small blind with and flopped a 7 against his and was now on 742,000 as we were down to players. With a break on the horizon one of the players (who held the queens earlier on) came over and chatted to me, "look, you and me are going to go heads up, lets just get these guys out of the way and go from there", agreeing with his view we headed to break with chip stacks at:
1: Me - 870,000
2: Semi-donkey - 380,00
4: Fish - 165,000
6: Good player - 560,000
7: Unsure - 159,000
8: Good player - 530,000

As we moved to 5 players I had a stack of 801,000 with blinds at 20k-40k with a 5k ante, and when we reached three-handed play I was short on around 430,000. However I managed to double against the good player (lets call him James) who I was going to chop with.

At a high point I moved up to around 1,131,000 in chips and had around half of the chips in play at one point, however it wouldn't last as I went on to do blow up like an Andy Block (WSOP Main Event 2005) or an Issac Haxton (2007 Pokerstars' Caribbean Poker Adventure). I called a 100k raise from the big blind with from 'James' who was in the small blind, and when the action was checked to me on the flop of I led for 200,000. Now the reason I led for so much was because during most of the final table play whenever I led for full pot I would always show down a really strong hand, however when I would bet around 2/3 pot I was normally semi-bluffing/c-betting. However he proceeded to move all-in for an additional 250,000, and with the amount in the pot I was forced to call and was up against , with a great sweat of the on the turn, the river failed to deliver as it dropped the .

The next hand I was left with around 460,000 in change and James raised the button to 100k. As I looked down at I knew I was way ahead of his range from the button and 3-bet all-in for my whole stack. However when the big blind woke up with and proceeded to move in over the top I knew I was in trouble, and with James folding I was happy with my decision but not my fate as I couldn't out run the tight player in the 4-seat as the board ran out 6-high and I was eliminated in 3rd place out of 368 runners.

3rd place netted me $5,711 for my $235 buy-in, but after being taxed for $1,640 (which is claimable once back home) and shipping 10% to Dane I will have netted around $3,400 in profit.

Looking back at the tourney I was extremely please on how I played as I wasn't blessed with cards as I only saw Aces once, Kings twice, AK twice and my next best hands being 9's and 7's. My only mistake was with the as I should have checked back on the flop or 3-bet pre. However with 1 final table under my belt for a 6k collect, and our fellow housemate Michael Guzzardi shipping 90k for a 7th place finish in Event 34 - PLO with rebuys, us Aussie boys are ready to really hit the felt of Vegas.