WPBT Tournament Report

I've been meaning to participate in one of the WPBT tournaments for a while now, and after a good month, I finally got on PokerStars and threw down $22 for tonight's tourney.

It was fun, and I'll definitely be participating again, though the outcome (for me) was a little disappointing... but most of all I'm disappointed that I didn't get to sit with very many of the folks who literally have taught me everything I know. 109 players, $2180 divided amongst the top 18, T1500 to start.

The cards were pretty lackluster as well. Early on, I was getting nothing even remotely playable, which is a double-edged sword: it keeps you out of trouble, but even the small blinds in the early going start whittling away your stack pretty fast.

On the first hand which I voluntarily put money in the pot I held AJo, which I was hesitant to play, and when the flop came 234 rainbow, I bet half the pot and Chris folded. (I drop his name here, just because he was one of a very few opponents I recognized and who's site I read.)

Not long after I called down a short stack all-in with 99 on a K84 flop, while he held AK. I made a bad read and didn't believe his push when another player and I had checked to him. That put me down to about T750 or so.

Then just before the first break, I hit the wrong button and called an all-in raise to my right. I held KQo, against 55, and was ready to leave really pissed off until the river brought a King. I felt that I had just used up all my luck on that hand, and said so in the chat (though I guess KQ vs 55 wasn't the worst place to hit the wrong button in hindsight). At the break I was up to T1580, with the average stack being T2477... still a lot of work to do.

Glancing at the leaderboard during the break, I noticed that nearly all the familiar names were already out, which was kind of disappointing, but a little encouraging: I had at least outlasted some of the people I look up to. In a single tournament that's not worth much, and really means nothing, but it was encouraging none-the-less.

After the break, the blinds were hurting my dwindling stack pretty good, and the only really memorable hand was the one that knocked me out:

I found AQo with about T1250, and a middle-position raiser made it T600, and it was folded around to me. Now, there are better hands in better spots, but the blinds are 100/200 and doubling up here would really help the cause... and if I don't make a move soon, I'll be out anyway. So I push. "pumpkin1974" calls. He holds KJ of spades, and I feel good about my push at least. The flop is ragged, and helps neither of us, with just one spade. Turn: spade. River: spade. As I write this "pumpkin1974" is in second place with about 10k in chips. Good luck to whomever that may be.

I finished in 50th place of 109, at least outlasting over half the field, which was the general goal I had in the back of my mind at the start.