Secrets of the Amateurs

So yeah, shipped the Warm-Up last night which was great. It was a strange one, for most of the night I had a better shot on Party and I was focussing more on that. When I busted Party in 18th there were still 80 players left in the Warm Up ; the Party tournament only had 1200 runners compared to 4000 in the WU so it ran much quicker. From that point I grinded along until I suddenly won two flips to take me from 23/26 to 2/26 in five minutes.

Anyone in London knows how hot it is right now. I'm not an Internet slob or anything, but at 2am it was still 26 degrees in here with all the windows open, and I was reduced to sitting my T-shirt and pants playing this tournament. I know, it's not a pretty picture. I made the final without much further incident - there was no FT bubble at all as 10th and 11th went out on the same hand. Going in 5/9, the payout structure mandated very careful play against the bigger stacks, especially with the super-loose chip leader and a good 2+2 guy on my immediate left. The other players weren't great though and I knocked a couple of short stacks out ; firstly a guy min-raised from 10BBs in the SB, I shipped QTs and he called with K3s (sick induce as someone rightly said in the 2+2 sweat thread). Rivered him for flush > two pair, then I called a short SB push with Q4s and "held" against JT. Those two hands might have been the other way round (as in Q4 > JT might have been earlier), whatever.

Four-handed was relatively deep with everyone having at least 35BBs IIRC. Even so I felt that it wouldn't be long before two of the other guys got it in, which they did when the chip leader shipped 9x against Aces on a 9 high board and then rivered another 9. I doubled through the 2+2 guy with TT > A8 completely standard, then he went out to the chip leader 44 < 55. Heads up I was 3-1 down but chipped away at him pretty well. Being able to check-raise two pair and then split trips on the flop helped. I unloaded a sick bluff with T9 after I three-bet him pre and followed up the AQx flop. On the blank turn there was 14M in the pot and I had 11M left so I just thought "one for the crowd" and shipped it. He folded and said "nh", lol. Couple of hands later I raised with KK, he jammed 25BBs over it with K7s, gg wp.

Which was nice. I'm glad that's my biggest win now ; when people ask in interviews about "greatest achievement" I'll say that instead of 2nd at the WSOP - as soon as you say the word "second" their eyes start to wander as if they're thinking "fuck this, let's find an actual winner to talk to". Can't say I blame them either. So obviously confident going into the Main Event, without any unreasonable expectation. Without being too result-oriented, I'm pretty happy with my decision to skip the prelims anyway.

Playlist 5 :

Slayer - Reign In Blood
Pearl Jam - Ten
Catherine Wheel - Happy Days
Prince - Lovesexy
Bjork - Volta
kd lang - Live By Request
Starsailor - Love Is Here
Cistercian Monks Of Stift Heiligenkreuz - Chant - Music For Paradise
Brian Eno - Ambient 1 / Music For Airports