Hitting the Tournament Leaderboard and a Big Win

Yesterday I started my mini quest to win the Pokerstars weekly tournament leader board (TLB) by playing as many $12, 180 entrant tournaments as possible. I ran into a little difficulty early both in terms of luck and logistics. It turns out that around 9 am the tournaments in question only go off about every 15 minutes so it's impossible to play the volume that I'd hoped. But I made up some of the slack by playing in a few other tournaments which turned out to be a VERY good idea.

I ended up playing 21 of the 180 player tournaments and had 4 money finishes and 1 final table, but the most significant result by far came in an $11 tournament that started with 1,870 players. I played in this tournament because it had 10 minute limits so while it would be slower than the turbo 180 player flavor, it would be much faster than a normal tournament with 15 minute limits. Also in going for TLB points it makes sense to play against the weaker competition at the low levels.

I had a fair run of luck to start and when we got down to about 60 people (remember we started with almost 1,900 so 60 left is pretty far into it) my chip stack was about 2/3 of average. I caught a few breaks, made some good plays and before I knew it we were down to two tables. I caught some more breaks, busted a few people and found that with 14 players left I was in 2nd place overall and the chip leader at my table with about 300,000 chips (we started the tournament with 1,500 so this was a real accomplishment).

This is when I really went to work. No one else at my table had more than 200,000 and they were all doing whatever they could to just survive to the final table. I raised about half of the hands, gradually accumulated chips and ground down my opponents. I knew I couldn't go broke on any one hand and I had to do whatever I could to make it to the top few spots. 18-10th places only paid $140 and 9th was a paltry $250 while 4th was over $1,000, 3rd was $1,550, 2nd was $2,500 and 1st was $4,100. Clearly it's worth taking some chances for a shot a the top spots.

When we got down to 9 players I was in 3rd place and I did my best to keep the pressure on my opponents who were all trying to hang on since every time a player was eliminated they'd be guarenteed an extra few hundred dollars.

My chips stack went up and down a little more than I'd like, but when we made it to 6 handed I caught a MAJOR break. I was in the small blind with about 500,000 chips, the short stack was on the button with about 120,000 chips and the big stack was in the big blind with 700,000 chips. The blinds were something like 15,000/30,000 and the short stack moved all in from the button. I had JJ and moved all in over the top. The big stack instantly called and I figured I was screwed. Sure enough he had AA. SHIT!

The other player had 33 and I thinking about the fact that at least I'd finish in fifth (which paid about $900) if we both went broke. Then...BOOM! J on the flop! I was up to 1.2 million in chips and in total control. The player who I'd just crippled went broke on the next hand and we were down to 3 players.

We played 3 handed for what felt like forever. Myself and one of the other players wanted to make a deal and split up the remaining prize money based on chip count (if you e-mail support they'll come to the table and make any deal official and handle the money), but the third player wasn't interested.

In fact the third player was totally nuts. On one hand he just called in the small blind (the blinds were 25,000/50,000) and I moved all in for 550,000 in the big blind with A8. He instantly called with J7! Luckily I won that hand, but I wanted to lock up as much money as I could rather than play 3 handed for some serious bucks against a totally unpredictable opponent.

He was so unpredictable that I just decided to be crazy aggressive when I got a good hand and hoped he made a mistake. At one point I had about 1,000,000, the nut job had about 1,100,000 and the other guy had about 600,000. The blinds were still 25,000/50,000 and I was first to act. I picked up 77 and moved all in. Normally this would be a major over bet (in this case it was certainly a minor over bet), but I thought he might call with a weak ace or an under pair (he'd risked all of his chips earlier with KT so it wasn't too much of a stretch).

It turned out that he did have a pair and sadly it was 88. He called, I swore and I knew I was pretty much done. The flop came with 3 spades and I had the 7 of spades (while my opponent had no spades) which brought a glimmer of hope. And then the turn came a 4th spade! AH HA! Take that you bastard! The river was a 7 (which I didn't need) and I took down the pot. I busted him a few hands later.

Now it was time to talk deal. We e-mailed support and a person showed up at the table in less than a minute. I'm pretty sure as a supernova my e-mails are flagged and I get priority service because that is just amazing.

After a little back and forth we agreed to a split roughly based on chip count and since I had most of the chips I got most of the money. My end was $3,620!!!!! That's some serious dough for an $11 investment!

We had to play it out for TLB points and I won that part too. I picked up about 900 points for that one tournament and at the end of the day found myself in 7th place on the weekly TLB about 700 points out of 1st! Today I'm continuing to generate more points and I like my chances of winning the TLB. I have until the end of Saturday and I'll keep you posted on my progress.

Also WCOOP starts tomorrow at noon pacific with $215 NL Hold 'em 6-handed. I'll certainly let you know what happens as far as that goes.