$5000 Pot Limit Omaha Diary

As i reported earlier i made the second day of the $5000 Pot Limit Omaha but having played the best poker i can here at the WSOP i finally got knocked out by a player on tilt , i was very disappointed and needed a couple of days to cool off .

Having finished no 1 in Europe i had decided to play this $5000 Omaha , i knew it was a rebuy event but didn't realise you could also have a single or double add on , this put me at a huge disadvantage compared to the high rollers as i intended to play with no rebuys and i knew i would have to play my A game at all times .

I got a good first table , the only players i knew were Bill Gazes to my left and Chip Reese two to my right , interestingly neither of these took adavantage of the option to immediately rebuy but the players on my button and BB did . During the rebuy period there were in total 8 rebuys and then 10 add ons , four of these double therefore the average spend was $15,000 to my $5000 , the most spent by one player was $30,000 ! He made the second day but i outlasted him .

So how did i do in this situation ?

The first hand i played was KK 96 in the blinds along with Chip who had limped and Bill , flop was K 9 4 rainbow , Bill bet pot and both Chip and i called , turn was a 3 and Bill bet the pot again , i now reraised to 1375 and Chip called but Bill passed , river was a 3 and Chip passed for my 800 bet .

The next pot again involved Chip , i limped in the SB with A2 JQds , flop was J 9 6 with two diamonds matching my A flush draw , i checked , Chip bet 550 , there was one caller and i flat called , turn was the 3 of diamonds all checked , river was the 4 of diamonds , i now bet 1200 , Chip passed but the other player paid me off .

The final pot i won in the first level was with TJ 45ds on the button , flop was 7 9 K and after Chip bet and got one caller i decided to take off a card with my double belly buster ( an 8 or a Q gives me the nut straight ) , turn was a Q , Chip checked but the caller who had slow played AA KQds now bet the pot of 2250 with his top two and nut flush draw , i reraised all in and he called , a blank on the river and i finsihed in good shape with 11,500 .

The reason i had originally felt comfortable playing this with just a buy in was the blinds started at only 25 25 then 25 50 during the rebuy period so i figured if i could double up i would have 100 times the BB after the rebuys when it went 50 100 , i was already ahead of schedule with another hour level to go .

I did see one horrible call where the caller got very lucky , he had raised preflop and got one caller , flop was A T 4 , checked to him he represented AA and bet 1300 , he now got check raised to 4500 , the player was all in , after some time he called and showed KK Q6 , his opponent had top two so he needed to hit a K or a middle pin J , he said the reason he called was he could backdoor a flush , what we all forgot is it could come 6 6 to give him trips which is what actually happened causing the player to have his second rebuy , it was the same player i had already beaten at the end of level one .

During level 2 i played 2 hands AK QT where i flopped the nuts and ended up all in on the turn only to split , then 56 99 , i was on the button and hadn't raised for 30 minutes so decided to make a play and thin the field , that didn't work all 5 called , however the flop was a perfect 2 3 4 rainbow , all checked to me so i gave them a free card certain someone would bet the turn , a lovely T came and sure enough a bet of 1000 was made , now i reraised to 4000 , he asked if i had a 5 with my AA , i said no , he passed saying he had flopped a set , the end of the rebuy period i had 13,600 just below average but in relation to the blinds ahead of my goal .

During level 3 i discovered the disadvantage of not taking the single or double add on , it allows you to survive going card dead or missing draws and of course you can play more aggressive .

For example , in one hand Bill Gazes raised on the button i had AA for the first time in the SB but unsuited and with 2 small cards , i called as did the BB , flop was 4 4 8 , i bet 600 and as soona s the BB called i was done with the pot , we checked it down ane he turned over Q 3 4 5 , had i had more chips i would have put a small reraise in to win or get it heads up .

Our table now broke and i found myself on a new table which had Phil Ivey , Todd Brunson , Howard Lederer , Mickey Appleman ,Mike Wattel and Surinder Sunar , all had more chips apart from Surinder . Phil Ivey played 9 out of 10 pots raised or not and was controlling the table , i limped on the button with AT 89ds , flop was J 7 K , all checked , turn 6 giving me a huge straight and nut flush draw , Ivey bet i called , river paired the 6 . I ended the level with 8225 .

Level 4 $75 $150 came and went and i studied the players , during level 5 i again clashed with Phil Ivey and came out worst , finally i found a decent hand in FP AT JKss , i limped in and got 3 calllers , flop was perfect A T 9 with my nut suit , i checked and unfortunately all checked , turn was a 5 making a second flush draw , i saw the button glance down at his chips so checked to let him bet , he obliged with a bet of 500 , the SB raised to 1600 and i moved all in for 2850 , the button called and the SB surprisingly passed , i made my straight , he just had the nut club draw and was back up to 7800 .

As level 6 $150 $300 started Surinder was all in with a set of tens on a flop of 7 T K , Todd Brunson called him with 7 J Q A , turn was a Q giving Todd the nut straight but it still paired the 7 and Surinder doubled up , the table was broke and on the next table i saw Surinder all with a set of Queens against John Phan with the nut flush draw , Surinder made quads on the river and doubled up again .

In the meantime my new table included Eric Seidel , Dewey Tomko , Scotty Ngyuen , Yvgeny Kafelnikov , Tony Cosineau and later Howard Lederer who was replaced by Eric Lindgren ! I continued to have no hands and as you can imagine virtually every pot was raised preflop , i dropped down to 3100 .

Level 7 was the last level of the evening and with the average around 25,000 i needed to survive and get some chips , the blinds were $200 $400 . In FP i had QQ 95 ds and raised getting 2 callers , flop was A T 6 with my flush draw , i went all in and got one caller with two pair , i made the flush to survive . Then i got really unlucky , in the SB i took a rare unraised flop of Q Q 4 , i had 44 and checked , one player bet and i called assuming he had a Q with over cards , turn was the fourth Q , he bet agin and i couldn't now beat a pair of 5's !

I only played 2 more hands , one where i hit a great flop , it came A Q 4 , i had AQ T4 with the nut flush draw , check raised all in but split the pot with the same two pair , finally with only 1900 left i limped in with 8 9 9 T ss , two callers then Howard raised pot , i had to gamble and went all in , Howard called , he had QQ xx , flop was kind K 9 7 and one round later we ended for the evening , i had 5400 , average 38,000 .

Day 2

Even with my short stack i felt i had a chance as the blinds were only $300 $600 and i had the button ! Positive thinking . Devilfish was lowest with 1600 , on the last hand of the night he lost an 85,000 pot when the dealer dealt after the time had finished , there was bit of betting and Devilfish flopped top trips on a K 6 3 rainbow flop , his opponent had a set of 6's and 47 for a gutshot 5 which came on the river !

My first hand Eric Seidel limped in and i raised pot to 2700 , half my chips , Eric called , i had QQ T4ds , flop was 8 high , i know Eric will only call if he has me beat , i decide to check , turn is a 6 making a straight , he checks again so do i , river pairs the 6 , my QQ win and i am up to 9000 .

Two hands later i really start to think i am going to get into contention and my patience is going to pay off when i pick up KK QJss , i raise to 2100 and get one caller Yvgeny who has around 70,000 , flop is 4 8 Q , what would you do with top pair and an over pair ? I had 6700 left , the pot was 5100 , i had no clubs and there were two out there , i knew if i bet Yvgeny would raise with any pair and draw , i also knew from yesterday he only bets with a made hand , i checked , Yvgeny bet 4500 , i started to think what he had and more importantly why didn't he bet the pot , eventually i showed Scotty on my left my hand and laid it down face up to pass , both Scotty and Eric looked gobsmacked at this laydown untill Yvgeny showed his QQ in respect of a hell of a pass shortstacked , they then both said " what a pass " .

A couple of hands later a new player arrived and after one limper he raised to 2100 , the limper reraised 6000 and he passed , the raiser showed AA , the very next had Claude Cohen limped and the player raised again 2100 , i was on the button with QJ 64 and naturally passed , Claude called , flop was 6 6 4 , Claude bet and he called , turn was a 5 , Claude bet big and he passed .

This obviously put him on tilt he was now down to 8500 from 15000 , for the third time in a row he raised to 2100 saying " i keep on getting them " Eric and Scotty passed and i find AA 9Tss , i reraised 4300 more all in , everyone passed to him , he picked up his 5000 chip and said " I know you got me but let's gamble " , he called making the pot 13,700 , if i won this it would be the most i had in the tournament and would give me over 20 times the BB , he turned over AJo K4 of clubs , i was about a 70% favourite and i had the bare A of clubs taking one of his flush outs , the flop was 8 5 3 all clubs , how sick is that ? turn was an 8 just to tease me into thinking i might hit the third 8 or the case A but no their is no justice and i was out in 42nd of 134 .

Who knows how i would have done if my hand stood up or if i had been able to play on a level field , Surinder went on to make the final and when lowest stack with only 30,000 got a gift when 2 players with bigger stacks went all in and both got knocked , this earned Surinder an extra $35,000 for his 6th finish .

Phil Ivey apart from one blip virtually dominated the final table and apart from Robert Williamson who looked like getting there and Davood Mermand who refused to lay down his AA against Phils flopped top two , turning an A he basically won it with a display of non stop aggression .

The rest of my events are all No Limit and i guarantee there is a big finish coming .

ACES