The articles describe the day pretty well. I introduced myself to the Stars’ bloggers and let them know that I had a wife and other family at home who were constantly refreshing the blog for updates on me. I guess I was interesting enough to get some serious individual attention!
EPT Monte Carlo: All the way from Evansville, Indiana… – PokerStars Poker Blog
EPT Monte Carlo: On trucks and final tables – PokerStars Poker Blog
EPT Monte Carlo: Tough day for the SuperNova Elite – PokerStars Poker Blog
My table was ROUGH! Andrew Chen (who coincidentally had asked me for directions to cheap beer on the 2+2 forums less than 24h earlier) sat to my immediate left. Directly to my right were Pokerstars Team Pros Alex Gomes and Dennis Phillips, separated by an empty seat. The empty seat was shortly filled by Michael Tureniec, another ultra-aggressive professional. So from the beginning, I was surrounded by some very big sharks.
I was about 5 minutes late returning to my table after the first break, and saw Andrew Chen leaving after busting AK v QQ. I wasn’t too disappointed at the time, because I knew Chen would have given me trouble. 5 minutes later, Patrick f***ing Antonius takes Chen’s empty seat. This was incredibly stressful for 2 reasons: 1) Antonius is known for his aggressive play, and he was fairly low on chips, so I expected him to give me a difficult time. 2) With 2 Team pros, Antonius, and Tureniec at my table, the media had us surrounded. It was not a good time to be camera shy – there were literally dozens of camera men coming and going. The good news is, I very well may show up in some of the publications/websites who were there taking pictures.
I was incredibly satisfied with my balance of aggression and selective play. The first 4 levels of the tournament went about as smoothly as they could. I took down a ton of uncontested pots early on, and my first showdown was a steal attempt with K6o, which happened to flop a king. This helped my image a bit, and allowed me to get paid off on a few future hands. (JT vs KQ? on QxTxT), (JJ v ?? on 356J5)
The one mistake I wasn’t too happy about, was an accidental call from early position with QQ. The blinds were 150/300, 25 ante, and I tossed in a 1k chip without announcing the raise. The rest of the table clearly noticed that I intended to make that EP raise, and I had 3 or 4 limpers behind me. The flop came a fairly safe T23, and I was OOP vs an aggressor who was very willing to get it in on this relatively small pot. I wasn’t interested in trying to salvage any ego after the accidental call, and got away for less than 1500 of my (at the time) 44k chips.
About 30min later, near the end of this level, I catch pocket aces. A player from EP raised to ~900, and I reraise from the CO to 3000 – EP calls. Flop: JT9 rainbow. EP checks to me, and I fired 5000 to protect my hand. My raises had been getting a lot of respect from the table, so I put him on a fairly narrow range of: 77+, AQ+, and a discounted KQs-T9s. He checkraised to 15k and I went to the tank. I do feel like I needed to protect my hand, but this was a board that completely smoked his range. Best case scenario for me was that he was on AQ and trying to semi bluff me out. I dont think he’d checkraise with a hand like that though. So that leaves sets and major combodraws which leave me a huge dog, or a minor favorite. I wasnt interested in flipping for my entire tournament this early, and certainly expected his range to be much heavier on 88-QQ. After thinking for a couple minutes I mucked the bullets for a 8k chip loss.
About 5 hands later, I’m down to 33-34k chips and find myself in EP with black kings, the blinds had just increased to 200/400 ante 50. I raise to 1200 and get called by Patrick Antonius. Dennis Phillips was in the SB, and reraised to 3000. I had been making enough successful steals that it felt like many of the players were interested in looking me up. Dennis’ raise also looked like a potential squeeze play, due to Antonius’ call behind me. I reraise to 18k and commit my stack, Phillips pushes, I call and see the ugly news – Black kings vs black aces. An ace on the flop sealed my fate.
I really can’t be upset with the way the tournament went. I was very happy with my play the entire time. Despite being surrounded by extremely strong and experienced players, I was able to gradually build my stack until the last couple coolers. There was a bit of an intimidation factor, but it didn’t keep me from successfully 3betting the ultra-aggressive Alex Gomes with 64o, or making a similar play against Michael Tureniec with an equally garbage hand. Unfortunately it was the good hands that lead to my demise.
So that’s it for this blog post. We still have the sweet Monte Carlo Bay Resort room for the rest of the week. There are some other small tournaments that will be available to the other bustos out there, but I’ll probably take a day to relax and enjoy this tiny country.
