a chip and a chair - living the dream!
Before I start telling you all about the events at the Final Table I'd like to share a couple of memorable moments from day 1.
Buy-in $500, Starting stack $10,000, blinds beginning at $25-50, levels of 40 minutes. I started at table 8 seat 5, to the very right of Gustavo Echeverri whom I have had the pleasure of playing with a number of times in Guanacaste, but never in San Jose. Gustavo is an experienced and tricky player with a lot of moves up his sleeve, so I was not too pleased with the draw. The rest of the table was a mix of weaker spots and a couple of really good and agressive players.
Before I could get really comfortable and build my stack Gustavo was out as the first victim (big bluff called down on the river) and I was moved to a table with late entries. One of them was Karlo "El Mago" Lopez, an established PokerStars pro who happens to be an amazing magician too. What Karlo did not know was that I had had a clash with him online a year ago in a satellite tournament where he had been a little bit offensive and I had had to dosomething about it. That was the satellite where I was a huge favorite heads-up (Karlo busted in 4th place) but lost a $6,000 seat and was left with nothing, you can find that story elsewhere in this blog.
However, it was another player who got involved in a key hand against me. Jorge - a local San Jose player and a very likeable one I might add - had experienced a horrible bad beat against me in the Super Satellite for the Main Event. When we were down to 14 players and 11 would qualify, he and I went all-in preflop. I had Kings and was the chip leader, he had aces and was short-stacked but was now looking to double up and virtually qualify. The King on the river sealed his fate, he ran out of the room with tears in his eyes. Now he was sitting in seat 7, I was in seat 1. My stack was about average, his a little shorter. Blinds were $75-150, in 2nd position I pick up
If there is one thing I have learned from playing in San Jose is that you don't slow-play aces, you WILL get action. So I raised to $450, a Dominican player in seat 3 calls and so did Jorge in the blind. Flop falls
I made a continuation bet of $1,200, Dominican folds, Jorge calls. hmmm... flush draw? weak king? The turn brings a beauty:
OK, if there is a time to slowplay it is now, the ace has got to hurt Jorge and his feelings about the hand, check-check, hope he will catch something on the river:
Should be the moneymaker, and if it isn't I would never have been able to get his chips anyway, so I bet $2,000, he goes all-in with Flash Gorden speed, and I call. Jorge moans and groans. He had flopped the full house with K4 (that'll teach you not to play trash!!!) and was trapping me all the way, and now I had definitively and permanently become his evil spirit!
Chipped up to around $30,000 now and cruising, our table is broken and I am moved to table 5, seat 2
Seat 1 is a tight-weak Mexican of Chinese descent, seat 3 a nice but too talkative lady from Chile, seat 5 a North American girl with a crush on face cards regardless of value, seat 6 a solid Tico, seat 7 empty, seat 8 a robust young Mexican Peter Lego Fursund look-alike (for the Danish backgammon players out there), seat 9 a bluff-loving young Guatemalteco. As it turns out this becomes my seat for the rest of the day, other players come and go.
First big event at table 5 was the arrival of Don Luis Milanes. A living legend in the casino community, Don Luis is a soft-spoken gentleman of impressive dimensions. Years back he lost heads-up against Jose Rosenkrantz in Season 1 of the World Poker Tour at the only event in Costa Rica. Don Luis was the owner of the Casino Europa, but shortly after he disappeared from the surface of the earth, allegedly with hundreds of millions of dollars of investor money. 5 years later - last year in November - he suddenly reappears in San Jose, supposedly straightens everything out with whom he needs to and shows up at the PokerStars LAPT event, limo, chauffeur, bodyguard and all. Since then he has been everpresent and repossessed the Casino, and now he was sitting down at my table. He unloads 2 racks on to the felt, a total of $90,000, the overwhelming tournament chip leader.
He starts bullying right away, plays every hand, agression with turbo and afterburner. Mostly he will raise, sometimes limp. In a hand of the latter category he limps in mid position, it is folded to the blinds. In the SB I am looking at
and decide to call, expecting the Chilean Lady in the Big Blnd to check as she had done all day. Sure enough she taps the table.
Flop comes
SWEEEEEETTTTT!!!!! Keep cool, slowplay, action from Milanes is guaranteed! I check, and now Mrs. Chile bets the pot (around $1,200), Luis Milanes re-pops her to the size of her stack ($12,000), I move all-in for about $27,000 and they both call.
Chilean lady flips over
Don Luis is gambling with 
the board bricks out, lady goes home to Santiago and I am the new chip leader with a chip count of $68,725!
It is a long night, I am projecting we will finish day 1 after 4 a.m., I maintain my patient attitude, charge the blinds when I find it opportune and otherwise just try to find good spots. Once I get in real trouble and lose a big chunk against Guatemala. He had raised an uncontested pot from the button (again!) and I decided to make a stand in the BB, but alas - this time he had aces and could not be bluffed off the hand and I drop to around $30,000 i chips.
A player from the Dominican Republic has taken seat 3 now, and for some reason he is convinced that I am on a stealing mission every time I am in a hand. In a crucial hand everybody folds to me in the SB, and I think about raising. He has me outchipped by 2:1, and I am worried he will reraise me if I go at it. I do however like my K9o heads-up, so I make it as simple as I can - All-in! He is literally fuming now, and he snap-calls with A7o!!! Wow, I am in danger of extinction now, but the 9 on the turn saves me and relocates half the Dominican stack to the Tico-Vikingo in seat 2!
The official payout rewards the top 8 finishers, the Final Table on day 2 will have 9 players. It is now after 4 a.m. and we are playing 5-handed at 2 tables. During a break I suggest to TD Mario Zeledon that we take money from top 2 and give to places 9 and 10 so they will not have fought this long and gruelling night for nothing, and so it is. We finally lose another player, bag the chips and I drive home while the sun is rising.
Day 2 - Final Table
What I did not realize before the final table began was that I was actually the big stack! Not by much, the second biggest was Karlo Lopez to my right with around $90,000, and from there it went gradually down to $35,000 for the young crowd favorite Uri Rosenkrantz, son of Abraham, one of the PokerHispano owners.
Blinds were $1,200-$2,400 with a $200 ante, meaning there were $5,400 in the middle at the start of every hand and that the average stack had only 13 M. Quite normal for a Final Table, but it also meant you could not just sit there and wait for a premium hand. So I didn't. I took down the blinds and antes of the very first hand with a mid position raise (KJs) and my stack grew from $101,500 to $106,700 just like that!.
After that first hand I faded out of the picture for a while. The rest of the table picked up the action, a lot of raising and moves were made. The blinds grew to $1,500-3,000 with a $300 ante, we lost the first player at the hands of Karlo and he took a solid chip lead, not really what I liked to see but luckily I was to his immediate left in seat 5 and would have position on him for the rest of the tournament.
Young Uri had an amazing run with pocket kings twice and had taken 2nd position knocking out Guatemala on the way. All of a sudden I had a mediocre stack which had dropped to around $60,000 after a couple of unfortunate flops. Meanwhile blinds were up again, now $2,000-4,000 with $300 ante, Mexico in seat 9 has the SB, Rosenkrantz in the BB seat 1. Seat 2 - a chubby tight-weak gentleman from Panama with a love for salsa music on the iPod says raise, then throws his card toward the muck!? The dealer caught the cards on the way and called the floor. It was ruled that the raise would stand and seat 2 posted 8 yellow chips for the min-raise. Folded to the button - me! - and I decide to take advantage of the situation by re-raising to $21,000 and steal at broad daylight like a deer in headlights etc.etc. That was too much for my Dominican friend in seat 8 (the one who called my all-in with A7o on day 1) and he moves all-in!! Everybody folds to me, and now all of a sudden my 78o ain't looking to cool anymore. However, it was only another $28,000 to call, and with the probability that my friend was holding less than premium cards hovering around 75-85% I decide to call. He flips over QQ and I get no help from the dealer from here. From chip leader to short stack on the Final table, I am left with around $20,000 in chips.
But that was not the end of my troubles, far from. I steal the blinds and antes a couple of times moving all-in and surviving when nobody calls me. Then a crucial hand comes, I am in the BB again, now it is folded to seat 2, who announces all-in! He's got a stack similar to mine, pretty short so I know his shoving requirements are "flexible", Karlo folds in the SB and I have AJs so I call. Seat 2 has AQ and I am dominated. The board bricks out, I stand up as the dealer is counting out the stacks, I shake everybody's hands, they say nice things about my play, I am thinking "damn! another 7th place finish (WPS 2006)" when the dealer announces I still have chips left!! Hey, how much? $300!!!! Next hand I will post my ante of exactly $300 and not be able to post my small blind!! My stack now contains 0.0484% of the entire amount of chips on the table - let's just agree I need to get lucky now! The famous chip-and-a-chair story gets retold and I am getting encouraging remarks from everybody, laughs all around as we all await my exit in the next hand.
The action is folded around to young Uri in seat 1. He chooses to raise the pot!! Everybody folds including Karlo, who is shaking his head in disbelief. Uri turns over A9d, I am holding 4h3d, not the greatest hand ever, but at least I have live cards. The board runs out another ace and my tournament life seems as fragile as a candle light in a hurricane, but then a fourth heart comes on the river and I make my flush!! Up to $2,100!!! Everybody criticizes Uri for not limping and Karlo says it could be a very costly mistake. He had folded the ace of hearts so had Uri not raised the pot I would have been out. Ever heard of the theory that a flutter of a butterfly's wing in China can create a storm in the Carribbean? Sometimes the most tiny differences can have a huge impact.
We go on break, the $100 chips are raced out, back at the table my stack amounts to a whopping ante of $500 and half a small blind, we're at the $3,000-6,000 level now. For some obscure reason I choose to fold holding 52o, saying goodbye to 25% of my stack! Not wanting to repeat that mistake again I call all-in holding K3o in the next hand, two more players in the hand, can I only hit the flop! No such luck, the flop comes AJ842, Mexico flips 10 7, Karlo Q9 and my king high wins - all of a sudden I have more than $8,000!
Very next hand I am looking at A2o and I move all-in. I get two callers, they both check it down, one of them had made a pair of jacks, but it was no match for my turned set of deuces, ship it!!!
Now everybody was quiet at the table, fear in their eyes, and I was having a ball. There is really nothing better than having faced certain death just to survive, it's like being in a free-roll!
Next time I raised I did not have to push all-in and I took down the blinds and antes. I had decent cards, but most importantly nobody else had anything. Then I lost one pot and got knocked down again to push-and-pray status.
It is folded around to me on the button, and I am looking at a pretty hand:
My stack is at roughly $38,000 so I move all-in, expecting to pick up the blinds and antes ($12,500). The young Panamanian in seat 6 quickly calls and the BB folds. Uh-oh....
Panama reveals his ugly
and we see the flop:
hey, there is hope, now I have 5 outs!
The turn is
but thank God for inventing the river card:
another miracle has ocurred, Panama is down to desperation size and I am back as a force to be reckoned with!!
Next player out is in fact young Panama. He waited until he and I were in the blinds, and I put him all-in with AJ I don't remember his holdings, but he called and lost. We all moved up in equity now.
Over the course of the following 30 minutes we lost both Mexico and the other Panamanian. I was back as big stack at the table and the rest were in disbelief. Karlo was second in chips now. He and I had joked about ending heads-up, and now it actually seemed likely to happen. Then comes the biggest pot of the tournament so far - blinds are now at $4,000-8,000, ante $500. Karlo raises UTG to $21,000. I am looking at
Four-handed, I have position on Karlo, I have a hand with tons of potential so why postpone the duel? I call. The blinds both fold, we have $56,000 in the pot. The flop comes
not bad - sure there's an ugly ace, but I have middle pair with a good kicker and a backdoor flush draw on top of the backdoor straight draw! If Karlo does not have an ace,he's gotta be disgusted. Karlo in fact checks, I bet $32,000. Karlo checkraises me to $64,000, something that for some gutfelt reason seemed like an artificial move not backed up by reality. He has now around $55,000 behind. I know if I had hit the flop and would check-raise my opponent, I would go all-in Or if I really wanted to bluff I would also go all-in. Funky. I call. The turn comes
Now Karlo checks. Hmm. A lot of stuff in poker is technical, pot odds and shit, but sometimes you just gotta trust your instincts. Since I had Karlo covered substantially (about $70,000 more than him) I see no other move - all-in! Karlo dives into the tank, and I just sit head in hand and wait. He starts talking about how bad the 10 was for his hand, that I had called with A 10. A few minutes go by before he finally folds and I drag in the monster pot. At the table he said he had AK and I expressed my admiration for him that he did not go broke with that hand, that many chips in the pot and that I had hit 2 pairs on the turn.
Karlo is next guy out, we are now down to 3 players. Uri Rosenkrantz, the Dominican gentleman and myself. I have about half the chips in play, the gentleman in 2nd position and Uri in 3rd. Play goes back and forth, but the big action happens without me being involved. Soon they are both all-in preflop, The gentleman had made a weak call on Uri's push and he slides down to third position. Then they have another all-in, Uri has AQ and hits a set on the turn and he is celebrating just as a fourth diamond lands on the river to complete his opponent's flush. Uri is crippled again and steaming. Very next hand he goes all-in with 10 4 in the SB, I call wih J 10 in the bigblind and take him out of his misery.
Heads-up!! I have the chip lead, the blinds are now at $5,000-10,000, $1,000 ante. I was really happy to get this particular opponent as he in my opinion was the weakest of the lot. Over-playing his cards most of the time, making horrible calls, something that is really devastating for your chances against a better player determined to control pot sizes and be patient.
He actually took over the chip lead after the first 10 hands. We were at around $350,000-270,000 in his favor when the following hand played out. I am holding
on the button, I raise to $25,000, he calls. The flop comes
He checks, I bet $35,000, he moves all-in. I would be worried about this had it happened with 80% of the players I know, but in this case it was an easy call with top pair next bext kicker. Sure enough he flips over 8h 10d and no help for him from here, I gain a huge chip lead. Very next hand:
He completes in the SB, I check. The flop comes
This time I bet $15,000, he goes all-in, I call. He is holding 57o for the inside straight draw but another 3 on the turn fills my boat, the river changes nothing and I am the winner of the trophy, $9,170 in cash and a great come-back story firm enough to last much longer than a lot of my friends and family probably would wish.
After the photo shoot and the nice cheque we went to the Fiesta Casino in Alajuela where Poker Hispano had organized a very nice and generous award ceremony. Karlo made a great magic performance on the stage in front of a packed Saturday night fun-loving party crowd.Marian was pulled up on stage to assist him in one of the tricks, and it all ended with a public prize award ceremony where I received the trophy, and after me the winner of the main event Mr. Ingino from Panama who took down a field of 111 and a first prize of more than $50,000. At the party Karlo approached me and said (referring to the big hand I won against him) "I had K 9, what did you really have?" We both laughed and I returned the favor. It was a great pleasure to get to know and play you, Karlo, hope to see you soon again at the LAPT.
The only thing I could wish for now would that this event would have counted for the Guanacaste Player of the Year - I calculated the points I would have made, and it amounts to around 24,000, enough to distance Jeff Herrman by more than 10,000 GPOY points!!
Buy-in $500, Starting stack $10,000, blinds beginning at $25-50, levels of 40 minutes. I started at table 8 seat 5, to the very right of Gustavo Echeverri whom I have had the pleasure of playing with a number of times in Guanacaste, but never in San Jose. Gustavo is an experienced and tricky player with a lot of moves up his sleeve, so I was not too pleased with the draw. The rest of the table was a mix of weaker spots and a couple of really good and agressive players.
Before I could get really comfortable and build my stack Gustavo was out as the first victim (big bluff called down on the river) and I was moved to a table with late entries. One of them was Karlo "El Mago" Lopez, an established PokerStars pro who happens to be an amazing magician too. What Karlo did not know was that I had had a clash with him online a year ago in a satellite tournament where he had been a little bit offensive and I had had to dosomething about it. That was the satellite where I was a huge favorite heads-up (Karlo busted in 4th place) but lost a $6,000 seat and was left with nothing, you can find that story elsewhere in this blog.
However, it was another player who got involved in a key hand against me. Jorge - a local San Jose player and a very likeable one I might add - had experienced a horrible bad beat against me in the Super Satellite for the Main Event. When we were down to 14 players and 11 would qualify, he and I went all-in preflop. I had Kings and was the chip leader, he had aces and was short-stacked but was now looking to double up and virtually qualify. The King on the river sealed his fate, he ran out of the room with tears in his eyes. Now he was sitting in seat 7, I was in seat 1. My stack was about average, his a little shorter. Blinds were $75-150, in 2nd position I pick up
If there is one thing I have learned from playing in San Jose is that you don't slow-play aces, you WILL get action. So I raised to $450, a Dominican player in seat 3 calls and so did Jorge in the blind. Flop falls
I made a continuation bet of $1,200, Dominican folds, Jorge calls. hmmm... flush draw? weak king? The turn brings a beauty:
OK, if there is a time to slowplay it is now, the ace has got to hurt Jorge and his feelings about the hand, check-check, hope he will catch something on the river:
Should be the moneymaker, and if it isn't I would never have been able to get his chips anyway, so I bet $2,000, he goes all-in with Flash Gorden speed, and I call. Jorge moans and groans. He had flopped the full house with K4 (that'll teach you not to play trash!!!) and was trapping me all the way, and now I had definitively and permanently become his evil spirit!
Chipped up to around $30,000 now and cruising, our table is broken and I am moved to table 5, seat 2
Seat 1 is a tight-weak Mexican of Chinese descent, seat 3 a nice but too talkative lady from Chile, seat 5 a North American girl with a crush on face cards regardless of value, seat 6 a solid Tico, seat 7 empty, seat 8 a robust young Mexican Peter Lego Fursund look-alike (for the Danish backgammon players out there), seat 9 a bluff-loving young Guatemalteco. As it turns out this becomes my seat for the rest of the day, other players come and go.
First big event at table 5 was the arrival of Don Luis Milanes. A living legend in the casino community, Don Luis is a soft-spoken gentleman of impressive dimensions. Years back he lost heads-up against Jose Rosenkrantz in Season 1 of the World Poker Tour at the only event in Costa Rica. Don Luis was the owner of the Casino Europa, but shortly after he disappeared from the surface of the earth, allegedly with hundreds of millions of dollars of investor money. 5 years later - last year in November - he suddenly reappears in San Jose, supposedly straightens everything out with whom he needs to and shows up at the PokerStars LAPT event, limo, chauffeur, bodyguard and all. Since then he has been everpresent and repossessed the Casino, and now he was sitting down at my table. He unloads 2 racks on to the felt, a total of $90,000, the overwhelming tournament chip leader.
He starts bullying right away, plays every hand, agression with turbo and afterburner. Mostly he will raise, sometimes limp. In a hand of the latter category he limps in mid position, it is folded to the blinds. In the SB I am looking at
and decide to call, expecting the Chilean Lady in the Big Blnd to check as she had done all day. Sure enough she taps the table.
Flop comes
SWEEEEEETTTTT!!!!! Keep cool, slowplay, action from Milanes is guaranteed! I check, and now Mrs. Chile bets the pot (around $1,200), Luis Milanes re-pops her to the size of her stack ($12,000), I move all-in for about $27,000 and they both call.
Chilean lady flips over
Don Luis is gambling with the board bricks out, lady goes home to Santiago and I am the new chip leader with a chip count of $68,725!
It is a long night, I am projecting we will finish day 1 after 4 a.m., I maintain my patient attitude, charge the blinds when I find it opportune and otherwise just try to find good spots. Once I get in real trouble and lose a big chunk against Guatemala. He had raised an uncontested pot from the button (again!) and I decided to make a stand in the BB, but alas - this time he had aces and could not be bluffed off the hand and I drop to around $30,000 i chips.
A player from the Dominican Republic has taken seat 3 now, and for some reason he is convinced that I am on a stealing mission every time I am in a hand. In a crucial hand everybody folds to me in the SB, and I think about raising. He has me outchipped by 2:1, and I am worried he will reraise me if I go at it. I do however like my K9o heads-up, so I make it as simple as I can - All-in! He is literally fuming now, and he snap-calls with A7o!!! Wow, I am in danger of extinction now, but the 9 on the turn saves me and relocates half the Dominican stack to the Tico-Vikingo in seat 2!
The official payout rewards the top 8 finishers, the Final Table on day 2 will have 9 players. It is now after 4 a.m. and we are playing 5-handed at 2 tables. During a break I suggest to TD Mario Zeledon that we take money from top 2 and give to places 9 and 10 so they will not have fought this long and gruelling night for nothing, and so it is. We finally lose another player, bag the chips and I drive home while the sun is rising.
Day 2 - Final Table
What I did not realize before the final table began was that I was actually the big stack! Not by much, the second biggest was Karlo Lopez to my right with around $90,000, and from there it went gradually down to $35,000 for the young crowd favorite Uri Rosenkrantz, son of Abraham, one of the PokerHispano owners.
Blinds were $1,200-$2,400 with a $200 ante, meaning there were $5,400 in the middle at the start of every hand and that the average stack had only 13 M. Quite normal for a Final Table, but it also meant you could not just sit there and wait for a premium hand. So I didn't. I took down the blinds and antes of the very first hand with a mid position raise (KJs) and my stack grew from $101,500 to $106,700 just like that!.
After that first hand I faded out of the picture for a while. The rest of the table picked up the action, a lot of raising and moves were made. The blinds grew to $1,500-3,000 with a $300 ante, we lost the first player at the hands of Karlo and he took a solid chip lead, not really what I liked to see but luckily I was to his immediate left in seat 5 and would have position on him for the rest of the tournament.
Young Uri had an amazing run with pocket kings twice and had taken 2nd position knocking out Guatemala on the way. All of a sudden I had a mediocre stack which had dropped to around $60,000 after a couple of unfortunate flops. Meanwhile blinds were up again, now $2,000-4,000 with $300 ante, Mexico in seat 9 has the SB, Rosenkrantz in the BB seat 1. Seat 2 - a chubby tight-weak gentleman from Panama with a love for salsa music on the iPod says raise, then throws his card toward the muck!? The dealer caught the cards on the way and called the floor. It was ruled that the raise would stand and seat 2 posted 8 yellow chips for the min-raise. Folded to the button - me! - and I decide to take advantage of the situation by re-raising to $21,000 and steal at broad daylight like a deer in headlights etc.etc. That was too much for my Dominican friend in seat 8 (the one who called my all-in with A7o on day 1) and he moves all-in!! Everybody folds to me, and now all of a sudden my 78o ain't looking to cool anymore. However, it was only another $28,000 to call, and with the probability that my friend was holding less than premium cards hovering around 75-85% I decide to call. He flips over QQ and I get no help from the dealer from here. From chip leader to short stack on the Final table, I am left with around $20,000 in chips.
But that was not the end of my troubles, far from. I steal the blinds and antes a couple of times moving all-in and surviving when nobody calls me. Then a crucial hand comes, I am in the BB again, now it is folded to seat 2, who announces all-in! He's got a stack similar to mine, pretty short so I know his shoving requirements are "flexible", Karlo folds in the SB and I have AJs so I call. Seat 2 has AQ and I am dominated. The board bricks out, I stand up as the dealer is counting out the stacks, I shake everybody's hands, they say nice things about my play, I am thinking "damn! another 7th place finish (WPS 2006)" when the dealer announces I still have chips left!! Hey, how much? $300!!!! Next hand I will post my ante of exactly $300 and not be able to post my small blind!! My stack now contains 0.0484% of the entire amount of chips on the table - let's just agree I need to get lucky now! The famous chip-and-a-chair story gets retold and I am getting encouraging remarks from everybody, laughs all around as we all await my exit in the next hand.
The action is folded around to young Uri in seat 1. He chooses to raise the pot!! Everybody folds including Karlo, who is shaking his head in disbelief. Uri turns over A9d, I am holding 4h3d, not the greatest hand ever, but at least I have live cards. The board runs out another ace and my tournament life seems as fragile as a candle light in a hurricane, but then a fourth heart comes on the river and I make my flush!! Up to $2,100!!! Everybody criticizes Uri for not limping and Karlo says it could be a very costly mistake. He had folded the ace of hearts so had Uri not raised the pot I would have been out. Ever heard of the theory that a flutter of a butterfly's wing in China can create a storm in the Carribbean? Sometimes the most tiny differences can have a huge impact.
We go on break, the $100 chips are raced out, back at the table my stack amounts to a whopping ante of $500 and half a small blind, we're at the $3,000-6,000 level now. For some obscure reason I choose to fold holding 52o, saying goodbye to 25% of my stack! Not wanting to repeat that mistake again I call all-in holding K3o in the next hand, two more players in the hand, can I only hit the flop! No such luck, the flop comes AJ842, Mexico flips 10 7, Karlo Q9 and my king high wins - all of a sudden I have more than $8,000!
Very next hand I am looking at A2o and I move all-in. I get two callers, they both check it down, one of them had made a pair of jacks, but it was no match for my turned set of deuces, ship it!!!
Now everybody was quiet at the table, fear in their eyes, and I was having a ball. There is really nothing better than having faced certain death just to survive, it's like being in a free-roll!
Next time I raised I did not have to push all-in and I took down the blinds and antes. I had decent cards, but most importantly nobody else had anything. Then I lost one pot and got knocked down again to push-and-pray status.
It is folded around to me on the button, and I am looking at a pretty hand:
My stack is at roughly $38,000 so I move all-in, expecting to pick up the blinds and antes ($12,500). The young Panamanian in seat 6 quickly calls and the BB folds. Uh-oh....
Panama reveals his ugly
and we see the flop:
hey, there is hope, now I have 5 outs!
The turn is
but thank God for inventing the river card:
another miracle has ocurred, Panama is down to desperation size and I am back as a force to be reckoned with!!
Next player out is in fact young Panama. He waited until he and I were in the blinds, and I put him all-in with AJ I don't remember his holdings, but he called and lost. We all moved up in equity now.
Over the course of the following 30 minutes we lost both Mexico and the other Panamanian. I was back as big stack at the table and the rest were in disbelief. Karlo was second in chips now. He and I had joked about ending heads-up, and now it actually seemed likely to happen. Then comes the biggest pot of the tournament so far - blinds are now at $4,000-8,000, ante $500. Karlo raises UTG to $21,000. I am looking at
Four-handed, I have position on Karlo, I have a hand with tons of potential so why postpone the duel? I call. The blinds both fold, we have $56,000 in the pot. The flop comes
not bad - sure there's an ugly ace, but I have middle pair with a good kicker and a backdoor flush draw on top of the backdoor straight draw! If Karlo does not have an ace,he's gotta be disgusted. Karlo in fact checks, I bet $32,000. Karlo checkraises me to $64,000, something that for some gutfelt reason seemed like an artificial move not backed up by reality. He has now around $55,000 behind. I know if I had hit the flop and would check-raise my opponent, I would go all-in Or if I really wanted to bluff I would also go all-in. Funky. I call. The turn comes
Now Karlo checks. Hmm. A lot of stuff in poker is technical, pot odds and shit, but sometimes you just gotta trust your instincts. Since I had Karlo covered substantially (about $70,000 more than him) I see no other move - all-in! Karlo dives into the tank, and I just sit head in hand and wait. He starts talking about how bad the 10 was for his hand, that I had called with A 10. A few minutes go by before he finally folds and I drag in the monster pot. At the table he said he had AK and I expressed my admiration for him that he did not go broke with that hand, that many chips in the pot and that I had hit 2 pairs on the turn.
Karlo is next guy out, we are now down to 3 players. Uri Rosenkrantz, the Dominican gentleman and myself. I have about half the chips in play, the gentleman in 2nd position and Uri in 3rd. Play goes back and forth, but the big action happens without me being involved. Soon they are both all-in preflop, The gentleman had made a weak call on Uri's push and he slides down to third position. Then they have another all-in, Uri has AQ and hits a set on the turn and he is celebrating just as a fourth diamond lands on the river to complete his opponent's flush. Uri is crippled again and steaming. Very next hand he goes all-in with 10 4 in the SB, I call wih J 10 in the bigblind and take him out of his misery.
Heads-up!! I have the chip lead, the blinds are now at $5,000-10,000, $1,000 ante. I was really happy to get this particular opponent as he in my opinion was the weakest of the lot. Over-playing his cards most of the time, making horrible calls, something that is really devastating for your chances against a better player determined to control pot sizes and be patient.
He actually took over the chip lead after the first 10 hands. We were at around $350,000-270,000 in his favor when the following hand played out. I am holding
on the button, I raise to $25,000, he calls. The flop comes
He checks, I bet $35,000, he moves all-in. I would be worried about this had it happened with 80% of the players I know, but in this case it was an easy call with top pair next bext kicker. Sure enough he flips over 8h 10d and no help for him from here, I gain a huge chip lead. Very next hand:
He completes in the SB, I check. The flop comes
This time I bet $15,000, he goes all-in, I call. He is holding 57o for the inside straight draw but another 3 on the turn fills my boat, the river changes nothing and I am the winner of the trophy, $9,170 in cash and a great come-back story firm enough to last much longer than a lot of my friends and family probably would wish.
After the photo shoot and the nice cheque we went to the Fiesta Casino in Alajuela where Poker Hispano had organized a very nice and generous award ceremony. Karlo made a great magic performance on the stage in front of a packed Saturday night fun-loving party crowd.Marian was pulled up on stage to assist him in one of the tricks, and it all ended with a public prize award ceremony where I received the trophy, and after me the winner of the main event Mr. Ingino from Panama who took down a field of 111 and a first prize of more than $50,000. At the party Karlo approached me and said (referring to the big hand I won against him) "I had K 9, what did you really have?" We both laughed and I returned the favor. It was a great pleasure to get to know and play you, Karlo, hope to see you soon again at the LAPT.
The only thing I could wish for now would that this event would have counted for the Guanacaste Player of the Year - I calculated the points I would have made, and it amounts to around 24,000, enough to distance Jeff Herrman by more than 10,000 GPOY points!!
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