FTOPS ME Recap

Ok as promised, I am going to try and recount my experiences leading to my big score on Sunday. It has been somewhat of a mindblowing experience and I am still a little sleep deprived so bear with me if this post sucks.

Some people have already asked me to post the HH, and I have requested it from Tilt but it is missing quite a few hands and PokerTracker also is missing basically all of my hands from the last three tables to the end, so I simply can't post the entire tourney. If there are hands that you remember, or if you have any other questions I'd be glad to answer them though.

Ok, back to the story. It actually began on Saturday when I entered a $50 satelite into the ME. I built myself a stack and actually was told to fold the following hand because I should be able to fold to the seat at this point but couldn't bring myself to do it.

Full Tilt Poker Game #3295960763: FTOPS Main Event Satellite (22697709), Table 58 - 500/1000 Ante 125 - No Limit Hold'em - 0:30:35 ET - 2007/08/19
Seat 1: 9Bluemoon9 (17,040)
Seat 2: FlowDogg (20,095)
Seat 3: konamark (20,105)
Seat 4: kileysdad (8,641)
Seat 5: Tourbound68 (9,228)
Seat 6: chardrian (21,850)
Seat 7: stevieho (22,050)
Seat 8: NCrealest8 (7,645)
9Bluemoon9 antes 125
FlowDogg antes 125
konamark antes 125
kileysdad antes 125
Tourbound68 antes 125
chardrian antes 125
stevieho antes 125
NCrealest8 antes 125
chardrian posts the small blind of 500
stevieho posts the big blind of 1,000
The button is in seat #5
*** HOLE CARDS ***
Dealt to chardrian [Kd Ks]
NCrealest8 has 15 seconds left to act
NCrealest8 folds
9Bluemoon9 has 15 seconds left to act
9Bluemoon9 folds
FlowDogg folds
konamark folds
kileysdad folds
Tourbound68 folds
raekmeth sits down
raekmeth adds 34,588
chardrian has 15 seconds left to act
chardrian raises to 3,000
stevieho folds
Uncalled bet of 2,000 returned to chardrian
chardrian mucks
chardrian wins the pot (3,000)
*** SUMMARY ***
Total pot 3,000 | Rake 0
Seat 1: 9Bluemoon9 folded before the Flop
Seat 2: FlowDogg folded before the Flop
Seat 3: konamark folded before the Flop
Seat 4: kileysdad folded before the Flop
Seat 5: Tourbound68 (button) folded before the Flop
Seat 6: chardrian (small blind) collected (3,000), mucked
Seat 7: stevieho (big blind) folded before the Flop
Seat 8: NCrealest8 folded before the Flop

I did shut down after this hand as I was in like 20 somethingth place and there were only lik 140 something left in the tourney and 116 got seats. Well it turned out that the tourney lasted longer than we all thought, and the guy to my right didn't understand the fold to a seat theory so he kept stealing my blinds and after 40 hands of no walks I had been blinded down to the bubble boy.

This hand was with 117 left and me in 117th (116 got seats).

Full Tilt Poker Game #3296493596: FTOPS Main Event Satellite (22697709), Table 58 - 2000/4000 Ante 500 - No Limit Hold'em - 1:32:15 ET - 2007/08/19
Seat 1: 9Bluemoon9 (30,210)
Seat 2: sweetombre (31,252)
Seat 3: konamark (4,486)
Seat 5: Tourbound68 (31,659)
Seat 6: chardrian (3,025)
Seat 7: stevieho (34,775)
Seat 8: abreadwinner (23,000)
Seat 9: raekmeth (21,288)
9Bluemoon9 antes 500
sweetombre antes 500
konamark antes 500
Tourbound68 antes 500
chardrian antes 500
stevieho antes 500
abreadwinner antes 500
raekmeth antes 500
Tourbound68 posts the small blind of 2,000
chardrian posts the big blind of 2,525, and is all in
The button is in seat #3
*** HOLE CARDS ***
Dealt to chardrian [6h 7d]
stevieho: once it gets to 116 does it end
Tourbound68: please report me that i want to lose
stevieho folds
abreadwinner folds
sweetombre: no...
konamark: yep
raekmeth has 15 seconds left to act
sweetombre: you keep playing
raekmeth folds
9Bluemoon9 folds
stevieho: for what
sweetombre: FTP..is weird like that
sweetombre has 15 seconds left to act
sweetombre folds
konamark folds
Tourbound68 calls 525
Tourbound68 shows [6c 2s]
chardrian shows [6h 7d]
*** FLOP *** [7s Js As]
*** TURN *** [7s Js As] [9h]
*** RIVER *** [7s Js As 9h] [Jh]
Tourbound68 shows a pair of Jacks
chardrian shows two pair, Jacks and Sevens
chardrian wins the pot (9,050) with two pair, Jacks and Sevens
*** SUMMARY ***
Total pot 9,050 | Rake 0
Board: [7s Js As 9h Jh]
Seat 1: 9Bluemoon9 folded before the Flop
Seat 2: sweetombre folded before the Flop
Seat 3: konamark (button) folded before the Flop
Seat 5: Tourbound68 (small blind) showed [6c 2s] and lost with a pair of Jacks
Seat 6: chardrian (big blind) showed [6h 7d] and won (9,050) with two pair, Jacks and Sevens
Seat 7: stevieho folded before the Flop
Seat 8: abreadwinner folded before the Flop
Seat 9: raekmeth folded before the Flop

And wheeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeee I got my seat.

The day of the ME I was preparing to play when my wife, who was out on a bike ride, called about a half hour before the event started saying she had just got paged and had to go to work and needed to be picked up. I made a mad dash to go find her, scooped her up, and made it back home one minute before the event started.

The beginning of the tourney was sort of standard and I gradually accumulated a stack. By the time we made the money I had a decent stack and was being pretty aggressive as I knew this was a lot of money and people at this point were mostly just playing their cards and hoping to hit.

I know I started to pick up quite a few railbirds as the event progressed but chat is really hard to read on Tilt and I was focusing more on the play. Once I got deeper and deeper I continued to stay aggressive, but I also realized that our stacks were really deep and that instead of playing a very aggressive re-raise preflop game which is what tourney structures usually demand, I could play a lot of pots and outplay people postflop. So I did. And it worked.

There were a couple of very big hands which I remember that were crucial to my success - I won two postflop races that doubled me up (one with JK on a J hi board versus a four flush with overs and one was the 2c4c hand on a 2xcxc board which hit the river flush for me) and I sucked out with two tables left with KK vs AA in a hand that played itself. But other than that, I won my pots with either the dominant hand or by outplaying my opponents.

By the time we got to the Final Table, I felt that I was very much in control of the table and I really liked my chances to take it down. The beginning to my end began when I picked up Q8 os against the eventual winner's 56. I actually made a bluff on the 366 flop when he led out and he smoothcalled. The Q turn he smartly checked behind. And I fell for the trap and bet out the 5 river and was given something close to 5:1 to call his push. I made the call way too quickly, but I am not sure I would have folded even if I had taken more time as he could have easily had the 3 or even a hand like 45.

That hand basically evened out the stacks and gave Crazy momentum and chips as he then began to reraise me every time I entered a pot and each time I had to fold. My last hand had me as the shortstack, but I still had enough to work with. This time it was the 2nd stack that pushed on me but I had been playing with him enough to know that he had previously pushed with A8s as well as A9 when we were down to 2 tables, so I felt that three handed he might be pushing any A there. I did take my time this time when he pushed on me as I was holding Ac9c, and I eventually went with a call given the huge pot and my new need to double up. Looking back I probably should have folded both this hand and the Q8 hand, but those are really the only two hands that I regret. And out of over 750 hands that's no so bad... and I am definitely not complaining about my end results.

So that was that. I would like to again thank all of you who railed and provided support. I was obviously running on adrenaline so I did not feel the time, but I realize that people stayed up to 6:00 am just to watch me and I really do appreciate that. The whole thing is still mindblowing to me. I often would joke/daydream with my wife about winning or going deep in one of these big Sunday tourneys or special events and then it actually happened. Even at the final table I was saying how crazy it was that this was actually happening.

I have already requested to withdraw the vast majority of the winnings and I am hoping it will hit my bank account within the next couple of days. I am setting aside a big chunk of it for taxes and the rest is going to go as a down payment for our first house which is very exciting.

I can't really think of much more to add except to say thanks again.

awesome post

weeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeee

good post, nice job again

You the man. What were stack sizes & positions on the A9s hand? I doubt it was that bad of a call...

Also, pics of the house please!

Great Post. Congrats Again!!!

Seeing success of this magnitude by another FTR member is a great inspiration to all of us. Awesome job on the tourney and nice write up. Congrats.

When I heard about this, I was so happy. You're so awesome in so many ways and you really really deserve this. Congratulations! Good luck with managing the money.

I'd snap-call that's just a cooler. But some people think I'm a calling station so whatever.

click a mouse, win a house

*sorry*

Yea congrats man that's freaing awesome! *envious aspiration*

Yes. I was willing to play postflop and I think most at the table did not like that. So a lot of the shorter stacks started playing push/fold even though they had stacks that were deep enough not to.

I put him on 55+ (maybe even any pp), AQ+ (maybe even AJ).

There are threads on other sites arguing that this was a horrible call (he flipped over KK) saying he was a nit and the only hands he was doing this were QQ-AA. I am still very fine with that call.

Although it is choppy past about hand 160, for those that want to see me HH, it is has been run through the trimmer and can be seen here.

http://www.flopturnriver.com/Online-Poker-Tournament-1777.html

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