Cashing in the 10k Pot Limit Omaha Championship event elicited mixed emotions for me. I was extremely fortunate to cash as I misplayed on four hands I believe through the tournament. However, at the end of the day, I had a lot of chips and an opportunity to win, so busting was still pretty rough.

 

I had a pretty tough table draw to start the day, with Ralph Perry on my immediate right, who also won a PLO bracelet the same day as me last year, in addition to Phil Ivey, Phil Hellmuth, and eventually Dewey Tomko. Ivey played literally every pot but 2 for the first 3 hours. The first hand he folded came almost two hours into the event when the floor declared his hand dead while he was texting. I believe the second hand he folded was to finish texting. Literally every other hand saw the flop, either for a limp, a rare raise, or calling anyone’s raise from any position.

 

Of course, he was winning about 75% of the pots, constantly firing out bets and winning every single uncontested pot. I played virtually every pot in position against him, taking away several, and moving in on him on the turn a few times and folding to his second bet on the turn twice. We both were pretty deep when I saw a flop with KcJd9d8s of J83 rainbow. He fired his continuation bet and I called. The turn was an offsuit rainbow K, and when he bet again, I moved in. After little thought, he called me with 33 for bottom set, a pretty tough call, and I had 6 outs. Luckily I filled on the river and would have a massive stack.

 

I took a couple sick coolers and a few beats in medium pots, and with Hellmuth finally at the table after arriving two hours late, we played a few pots. One of the strangest hands I’ve ever seen occurred when Phil limped, and I limped in position with Ah4h6c7c. A couple more limpers to Mickey Appleman, who raised. I called behind Phil, as did the small blind, and the flop came Ac8h3c. Mickey checked to Phil, who bet 5000 into like 15000. I moved all-in, or tried to, leaving myself 8000 behind after potting, trying to pick up the pot and get Phil to lay down his hand. It folded back to Mickey, who after thinking a long time, moved all-in. Phil went crazy, how could this happen to him again!? Eventually he said he laid down top two pair. I actually gave a little thought to laying down my terrible hand for the last 8000 but obviously had to go for it with some outs vs. anything and the pot being over 80,000. Turned out I just had the best hand, as he had KK8x with the nut club draw. I faded the king, 8 and club, picking up the nut heart flush in the process, so I would have somehow beaten Phil as well if necessary.

 

Same process of a few sick coolers and bad beats thrown into the mix, all par for the course when running good in the big pots, when I played what I guess was a terrible hand vs Ted Forrest. I raised the cutoff with J10106 with Alex Brenes and Dewey Tomko in the blinds, who had both been playing extremely tight. Unfortunately, Ted Forrest, new to the table, called in the button. The flop was pretty good, J86, and I wanted my hand to look fairly weak and I actually felt a strong potsize bet would accomplish that. Ted thought for an extremely long time before raising me, and not wanting to leave myself short with a pretty solid hand, I moved in. He thought for a while again, calling me with J1087, about as bad a situation as I could be in. With only 3 real outs in the deck, I put a sick one on Ted and rivered my set of tens. I felt like absolute shit after this, feeling like I had been playing terrible and obviously not deserving of my good fortune. I stepped back from playing pots for a while, actually feeling like WINNING may have put me on tilt. Taking bad beats has little effect on me, but playing badly hurts me a lot. So I stepped back, spent some time text messaging with a close friend about non-poker.

 

The table eventually broke, and I moved to a new one. On the second to last hand before the day ended, I took a sick cooler with AKKx suited, raising in late position, but being dead against AAKx when I was pot committed to call his shove. Fortunately on the last hand I made a real great play with a very marginal hand to move my stack back from it’s now 75k mark to 125k at the end of the day, good for above average.

 

The second day was pretty steady until getting into the money. I flopped the 2nd nut flush and also hit top set with my KKxx double suited, but obviously ran into the nuts. Then I misplayed a hand vs Patrik Antonius, reading him for weakness only to have him move in on me. I doubled through him a few hands later when real short with AAK7 double suited, but when down to 25 players I moved over the top of David Chiu’s pot raise for a full pot-size reraise with T876. He thought a while and called with kings, flopping a set and ending my tournament on a flip.