BPT: 6 Heads

I managed to qualify for Poker.com's Blogger Poker Tour's Grand Final on July 1st. With a max of 42 players (39 sat), and a $12.5k WSOP package up for grabs, I managed a 7th place finish, and won a 4GB iPod Nano for my efforts. It's kind of sick to think I was 6 heads from the WSOP, but I am quite happy with my performance and result.

I've rarely seen a better example of bubble play: all players got prizes for making the final tournament, but the difference between 11th place and 10th was Poker.com gear vs. the start of the iPods. So around 15 players left I found myself ranked 7th in chips, where I stayed despite losing increasing blinds to my make-the-money, tight-weak strategy. The big stacks were just taking everyone else's money, everyone knew it, and nobody cared. I didn't fold everything here, but it was gonna take a pair higher than tens or AK to get involved.

Noteable hands (briefly):

- Early levels, doubled through KK with my AA (all in preflop after multiple re-raises). Maintained the chip lead for about an hour.

- Made two bad moves, both essentially stone-cold bluffs where I felt a lone opponent was weak. Managed to get away with minimal yet significant enough damage.

- Short stacked my AQo ended up all-in pre-flop against AKo, and I spiked a Q on the turn and the river. Didn't misplay the hand, but got lucky.

- Again short-stacked ended up all-in pre-flop with AKo against a big stacks QQ and a very small stack's 22. Ugly Q on the flop, leaving me needing runner-runner (either two running spades, or two running cards to make a straight, namely J and T) to survive and more than double up. Amazingly, the gorgeous two spades came without pairing the board. Didn't misplay the hand, but got really lucky.

- Final hand for me, and by far the most interesting of the tournament from a strategy perspective... I held ATo on the button 7-handed in an unopened pot, and with an effective "m" of about 5 (see Dan Harrington's books). Two options, raise a normal 3-4x the BB, or push all-in. Seeing two biggish stacks in the blinds who are unlikely to have monster auto-call hands, and who just might take a chance on a mid pair or other hands that I would at least be racing with: I opt for the push. The SB wakes up with QQ and of course calls, and I don't improve to finish 7th. My play here is debate-able perhaps, but not really a bad one.

As someone who I can objectively say has gotten rather unlucky in tournaments lately, I feel vindicated with the two big bits of luck noted above. Me and variance are square for the time being.

Congrats to the big winners:

1st: "EgonOlson", who'll be representing Poker.com, the Blogger Poker Tour, and Denmark at this year's WSOP. Good Luck!

2nd: "OhioMike", who played a great and bittersweet tournament (I sat with him to my left for at least the first hour and a half) and earned a sweet 30" LCD Monitor.

3rd: "Kdollar00", who survived a pressured 4-handed battle to make 3rd place, and earn a custom Keystone Poker Table.

Thanks go out again to Poker.com and the Blogger Poker Tour for putting on a great series of qualifiers and a really well-paced final event. The 5k starting stacks combined with starting blinds of 5/10 made for a great tournament.

Season 2 of the BPT starts in early September, with the final 1st prize being a package in the Aussie Millions Tournament to be held in Melbourne, Australia January 2007. All you need is a blog (any topic) to play.