Winning My Bracelet
DAY 1 – GETTING IN CHEAP
I had been really looking forward to this event in particular. This was almost the perfect event for me. First of all, the fi eld was very small; secondly, I have so much more Omaha experience than the fi eld on average; and thirdly, because I could afford to fi re as many barrels (rebuys) into the tournament as possible.
I had about $100K in my pocket that I was ready to use, but if I ran out of that I would have been able to get more cash if needed, as I had plenty of friends around. I was sure that with every rebuy I was +EV, so I was prepared to do as much as needed. Now, that doesn’t mean I was trying to get my money in bad – I avoided being a 65%-35% underdog, and I even tried to avoid 60%-40% spots. However, if I could get my money in as a slight underdog of about 45% or as a favorite, I would obviously take the gamble in order to build my stack. I only ended up spending $25k, which was almost the bare minimum since I did the double buy-in, as well as the double addon at the break. I was lucky and ended up winning most of my fl ips during the rebuy period. I was somewhat disappointed by my table draw, as it was not an action-fi lled table. I wanted the Iveys and Negreanus and Patriks at my fi rst table. Don’t get me wrong – I think they are all great players. I just wanted a lot of money at my fi rst table, and a lot of chips. The only person at my table who was gambling a lot was Chau Giang. He was seated immediately to my left, which is obviously a bad spot for the biggest gambler at the table in my eyes. I was still able to utilize all of the experience I had playing against Chau online at Full Tilt and win a few nice pots off of him. There were no real key hands on Day 1, but I was very fortunate to run my stack up to about 100k without much risk.
DAY 2 – GRINDING TO A CHIP LEAD
The structure of this tournament was amazing. I talked to Daniel Negreanu a bit, and he takes credit for it being so slow, so thank you Daniel. There was so much deep-stacked play and skilled poker in this tournament, much more so than any other tournament at the WSOP so far this year. It seemed that everyone left in Day 2 was very deep stacked, which made for interesting poker.
To my left to start the day were Brian Rast, Erick Lindgren, and Daniel Negreanu, which is not a great starting table. All three are great players, and they all had position on me. This would have been a great Day 1 starting table when rebuys were still an option, but not so great for Day 2. My goal was to play a lot of pots but I didn’t want to open many pots with that group to act behind me. My goal after the rebuy period through the fi nal table was to keep pots small. I never made big raises pre-fl op – I either barely doubled the blinds or open limped. I felt that my edge on people post-fl op was so great that it was pointless to play big pots pre-fl op. On the beginning of Day 2, with the exception of Brian Rast, everyone was allowing me to open limp and see fl ops. Erick and Daniel were happy to see a lot of limped three-way and four-way pots. My strategy was working and I didn’t play any large pots early in the day, though I continued to slowly build my stack.
With 24 players remaining, which was very close to the bubble, I got moved to a much better table. Pretty much everyone at the table was shorter-stacked and playing very tight with the exception of David Benyamine who was across the table from me (which kept us out of each other’s way for the most part). If David was out of the hand, I was opening most pots. I would open raise, usually get one caller, bet the fl op, and my opponent would fold. At this stage in the tournament those pots were signifi cant. Every time I did that I added about 20k to my stack, so you do that ten times and all of a sudden you have picked up 200k. The few times I was played back at, I usually had to make the call with an inferior hand, which I actually think I lost more of than I statistically should have. Even though I tried avoiding him, I did in fact win a few medium-sized pots off David where I would raise, he would check-call the fl op or turn, and I would hit something like a weak two pair on the river, with him missing a big draw with one pair. All of those pots add up, and I was happy to have them augment my stack.
Once the bubble burst things picked up pretty quickly. I was able to bust some of the smaller stacks on our way to tenhanded fi nal table play. As we got closer, I had to tighten up a bit when I moved to another table with a really bad seat draw. Negreanu and Rast were directly to my left again and prevented me from stealing many pots, which I had been so successful with earlier in the day.
There was one huge pot late in the day that propelled me into the chip lead, and it started with me having about 600k or so in chips. Daniel and I both saw a flop of Jd Kd 8h and I bet 50,000, and Daniel called. I had fl opped top set with Kh Ks Qc h. and I decided to check the turn, which was the 3s. If I had bet the turn, which seems like the standard play, he calls with a lot of hands, which is fi ne because I am ahead of them. However most hands he is calling with there have lot of outs. On that board, about half the deck makes my hand much less valuable. He could have hit a diamond or straight card and I am forced to check to him, as I am out of position. If a fl ush card hits and he missed a straight draw he may shove, if he hits the fl ush he will shove, if a straight card hits and he missed the fl ush he may shove, if he hits a straight he will shove. With any of these scenarios I will most likely have to fold my hand with my tournament life at stake. So on top of all of his actual outs, he has all of these scare card outs. I chose to check, and keep the pot small. It also adds some deception value, so if the board does pair or brick off it will be very diffi cult for him to put me on a set of kings there. I was extremely happy that he decided to bet 150,000 after I checked to him because I thought it was more likely he had middle set or top two pair. When I re-raised all in he called me with the 8c-9c-10h-Jc. I was very happy that I had two of his blockers with the Qc and 7h. My hand held up and I took the chip lead with about 1.3 million in chips going into the final table.
FINAL TABLE – THE GLORY
Entering my fi rst WSOP fi nal table I was very excited and nervous. I didn’t think much about how stacked the group was. I was more thinking about who I wanted to stay away from and who I wanted to target. Holding the chip lead at a WSOP fi nal table is not an opportunity that comes up very often, and I wanted to make the best of it and not blow it. I knew that if I made one wrong play I would not be able to forgive myself. Even though I had played a ton of hours and hands against many of my opponents online, the World Series is a much larger stage and the money is a lot bigger as well. The other difference from playing online is that I had 70 big blinds to start the table and I couldn’t reach into my pocket at any time to reload. Every hand counted. As nervous as I was about it, I think it helped me focus and play even better than I thought possible.
I was again fortunate to be able to minimize my involvement in big pots but still slowly chip up and retain my chip lead. There were a lot of pots where I would raise or limp and we would see a fl op where maybe one bet was put in and called and we would check it down to a showdown. I won a lot of those pots. Things seemed to be going my way. I was checking behind with a lot of strong hands that in a cash game I would bet all day, but I didn’t want to get check-raised all in knowing that a lot of times my hand was at best a 55% favorite.
One thing I noticed at the fi nal table was people over-playing their aces. I, on the other hand, approached them more conservatively. I think there were three hands where I didn’t re-raise aces pre-fl op, and I showed down two of them to win and won the third uncontested. One hand against David, I had A-A-Q-9 single suited. He raised pre-fl op and I called. I picked up an open-ender on the fl op and check-called the fl op and turn. The river was checked, and I showed down aces to win the pot.
The other hand was against Johnny Chan when he raised in early position and I called with A-A-2-3 rainbow from the big blind, which is as bad as aces get. So many people reraise in the big blind there but I think that’s a horrible play. You could put your hand face up and you would still be in bad shape. You aren’t looking to fl op anything at all; you are just hoping your aces hold up. I check-called the 10-5-2 fl op, then we checked it down to the river and my aces were luckily still good.
We got down to three-handed play pretty quickly and it was myself, David Benyamine, and Adam Hourani playing for the bracelet. I had seen Hourani playing $50/$100 online, but had no reads on him, other than knowing that he was a winning player. It proved benefi cial that I had at least this information on Adam, as he played very tight at the fi nal table. If I didn’t know he was beating some big games I would have thought he wasn’t capable of making any big moves or of higher level thinking which he proved quite profi cient at later on. I had played a lot with David which helps, but at the same time he also had a lot of info on the way I play as well. On Day 2 he actually sniffed off a big bluff I attempted, as I was trying to play against the image he had of me.
My preference going heads up was to not play against David. I watched his stack all day, and I wanted him to lose any time he was in a pot – which isn’t very nice I guess, but it was out of respect for his game. I got my wish when Adam, who had fl opped a set of queens against David’s pocket aces, eliminated David. I was relieved that I wouldn’t have to play David, but I quickly remembered that I still had to play heads up for the bracelet.
Adam and I played an extremely long headsup match. I think in heads-up PLO a lot of people tend to play way too many hands out of position. Adam and I both knew not to do that, so it ended up with a lot of small-pot, back-andforth poker. There was one point where he had doubled up and chipped up to about 2.4 million, which was after I had him at about 500k or so. I had thought it was close to being locked up earlier, and now he was back with over 2 million, so I was defi nitely feeling the heat and very nervous.
Before I knocked him out, there were two big hands that got me back on the brink of the bracelet. In the fi rst, I had raised with A-8-8-5 with two hearts, and he called. The fl op was Ad 2h Qc and it was checked around. The turn was the 3d and he bet out. I made a very loose call thinking maybe my ace is good and that I had a few outs. The river was the 10d, basically completing every draw on the board. Adam checked, and now I know there is no chance my ace is good in this spot, however I decide I can turn my hand into a bluff. Since I know he is capable of higher level thinking, bluffi ng here is great, because what could I call the turn with that does not have showdown value with that river card? I bet 700k and he ended up folding what I assume was a pretty big hand. It really curbed his momentum, and it gave me a lot of confi dence.
Another hand came shortly after where I made a huge call on the river with nothing but second pair on what was a very scary board. I’ll be giving you my analysis of that hand in the next issue of BLUFF.
Winning those two crucial hands on my way to the bracelet was very special to me as I got to really utilize my high level of thinking and skill level to win. They weren’t necessarily two hands that played themselves out; it was my play that was integral to depleting his stack, momentum, and confi dence.
When the fi nal card fell, it was a surreal feeling. It didn’t hit me at fi rst, but at the same time it was what I had waited for and was the entire reason I was there. I don’t like live poker that much, I don’t like tournaments, I don’t like traveling, and I don’t like Las Vegas. The only reason I put myself through all of that was to win a bracelet. I knew how big of a deal this was for me before it happened, and I am very fortunate to have succeeded in my goal.
