DUBLIN BELLYBUSTERS

Last night, I played a handful of MTTs. My 45ers went terribly and I was down about 1K with just two games left. One of them was a 69er and one was the $25K Guarantee. I took 3rd in the 69er and had the chip-lead with 200 left in the 25K. Two hours later, there were 35 remaining and I was 5th. Nick 'Rounder63' Carrillo was railing me and I sold 10% of my action to him. I had pieces of Nick for two of his last four big scores so I was determined to repay the complement. I was also desperate to take down a big score as a bacon-less 8 weeks had resulted in an 8K MTT downswing.

A couple of bad-beats and one lost flip dented my chances as I plummeted out of the top5 and back to an average stack. I rebuilt well for the next hour and won a crucial race with AJ vs 1010 to be top5 again with 12 left. My friend and fellow Bellybuster Thang 'thang911' Nguyen was sitting to my immediate left and we pumped each other up for a 1-2 finish. He was, at this stage, however, nursing a short stack but a double-up would put him back in the hunt for the final table. It came when his QQ beat AJ and we were final table bound.

The standard on the final table was poor. With one exception, our opponents were weak tight, rarely defending and almost never 3-betting. I took the initiative and began raising every pot that got to me unopened. The tactic worked as I doubled my stack and took the chip-lead without much confrontation. Thang was busy enough, keeping himself above water but my loose style reduced his opportunities to late-position steal. From 6-handed on, I relentlessly pillaged the blinds. When resistance came, I was happy to fold because it was profitable to raise every pot pre-flop given how tight the table played. Thang moved into 2nd place, winning a big pot by knocking out the 6th place finisher. He had 1.4 million chips to my 2.5 million. The other 3 players had less than 700K.

5-Handed didn't last long as two of the short-stacks went at it. 4-handed was a different story as we battled for the best part of half an hour. I lost a big pot to Thang. Thang lost a big pot to one of the others. I took a shot at the short stack with 8-7 suited from the SB but his 10-4 held up. Unfazed, I continued to make my pre-flop raises. Thang seemed to target my blinds which was actually a really smart tactic as they were the only pots where I couldn't get a raise in before him. I defended on two occasions but check-folded when I failed to connect. The one thing I didn't want to do was get out of line versus the only decent player left.

Finally, the short-stack died when he ran into my AQ. I had 3 million while Thang and the other guy had 1.5 million each. 10 minutes later, they went at it preflop, getting it all-in with A10 and AJ. Thang had the AJ and they held when he flopped trips. We had almost identical stacks and agreed to chop, winning $7800 each. Playing on for the honour and the title, I got the better of my friend, winning a big pot when I flopped a straight and finishing him off when my 1010 held versus his Q7.

It was a fantastic achievement as we outlasted almost 2000 players in what was one of the biggest $24 fields of all time. It was my biggest score to date and I followed it up this afternoon with a 2nd place in the $30 Turbo Event. This poker is a streaky business. Bring on the streaky bacon!

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