Mini-UBOC Event 6 Champion

That's right folks. Last Tuesday I got my first win of the year on a site I haven't played on in forever (unfortunately I forgot to take a screenshot and it's no longer available on their lobby grr). Ultimate Bet (or UB I think they call themselves now) is playing host to their online series called UBOC. Which like FTOPS, consist of a series of different poker tourneys and buyins throughout a two week period. I had no idea this was even going on until my friend called me up asking if I'd be interested in being staked in the $215 PLO 6mx event that was running and of course I was interested. Also running at the same time is the Mini-UBOC, which have the same events as the UBOC but for 1/10th of the price. So we figured might as well just put me in both. Well it almost ended up not happening at all. We had a tough time trying to get money on the site, so I was fine with not playing as I had been at school all day and was quite tired. But last minute we finally were able to get a transfer (which took forever as well), and I registered into the events about 45 mins late. On the very first hand in the mini, I doubled my stack with double suited aces going against double suited kings and I knew it was going to be a good tournament. After fizzling out in the main UBOC event, I concentrated all my efforts on the mini. It was a very interesting tournament to say the least. I played really well in the early stages, but the middle to middle late stages, I started to get tired and made some questionable plays. Luck, however, was on my side as I was all in and behind three times and each time I hit a river card to scoop the pot. Once we made the money I turned up the aggression. The adrenaline woke me back up and I played some of the best PLO I've ever played. My timing was just spot on and I was getting max value from my hands. It's a dangerous combination when not only are you playing good, but you're running good as well. I came into the final table as chip leader and when that happens rarely do I give it up. Wasn't until we were three handed where I finally had lost the chip lead and the stacks had started to even out. I regained it back however going into heads up, but I was so tired at this point I was getting outplayed heads up. My opponent took a small lead, when I decided to just gamble gamble. I got KQ96 double suited in the BB and I was facing a pot raise. I decided to just play for it all here so i repopped it pot and the guy insta-shoved. I knew I had just ran into aces but I had a good hand against them as long as he didnt have my suits covered. He turned over AA45. The flop came 458 which was not a good flop for my hand as I could only hit a 7 for the win or catch some kind of runner runner. The turn came Q, which opened me up big time as I now could hit any K,Q,9,6 or 7. The 6 came on the river and the run good was still on. He was crippled and the tourney ended a couple hands later. The win was good for a little less than $2400. UB called me right after the win and did a nasty little short phone interview with me which u can find here. I believe they merged about three responses into just one long clip. Had I known from the beginning they would've been using the interview on their site I probably would've thought a little more about my responses but as it stands it wasn't too bad especially considering it was around 2 or 3am and I had just played for 7-8hrs straight.

More good things are on the horizon. Its double guarantee week on FTP, so all the tournaments will have double the guaranteed prizepool. I look forward to taking down one or two of those this week and being able to have another brag post :-). Also FTOPS is right around the corner starting Super Bowl weekend, so it's going to be a jam packed February. So until next time. Shipshape.

Disappointing End to the Month/Year

I was going to post the graph of last months results but it pisses me off to look at it. So lets just say, I was on pace to have my best cash game month of the year but was unable to close the second half of the month. Halfway through the month I was already up around $1500 and it was looking great but three straight losing days netting -$2k wiped out all of that. It was the worst three days of poker I've ever experienced. I still have no idea what happened. I lost almost 50 buy ins in three days! Just unreal. Needless to say I took a break from grinding and only played enough to make the gold level in the IronMan challenge. I also did absolutely nothing in the six MiniFTOPS tournaments I played making it to the first break only once. It ended up being an absolute trainwreck of a month. The one bright spot of the month, though, was that I did become a black card member, although the benefits of it (at least for now) isnt anything spectacular.

Overall this year ended up being a pretty good year. I got to play in my first WSOP bracelet event, final tabled a MiniFTOPS event, and had my biggest online tournament score so far. Unfortunately, I'm starting off this year with about the same amount in my bankroll that I started with last year. It's a bit ridiculous, but I've learned SO much this last year and I'm just gonna carry it over to this year. I'm looking forward to this being my breakout year as I should finally be finished with school in May and want to be in a position to comfortably play poker full time. My school schedule is going to cut into a bit of my playing time, but I should still be able to get in a decent amount of playing in. Well I feel like I had way more I wanted to say but I really can't think of anything so I guess I'll end it here. Next blog post, I'm gonna list my poker goals/expectations for 2011. Hope everyone had a happy holiday season! Shipshape.