Well, this is my least favorite topic to write about, but here it goes one more time.

I now have SEVEN cashes over $100,000 (9 over $75,000), without a single cash over $200,000. I keep coming so close to a huge score, and just missing out.

In those 9 tournaments, I do have two first place finishes. Of course, out of the 9 tournaments, only two of them didn’t have a 1st place prize of $200,000 or more.

I run good, just like anyone else. I just wish I could run good the one time it actually REALLY matters, and by one time, I mean one of the seven.

The goal in WPT’s is generally to make the TV final table of 6 players. Well, I have an 11th, an 8th, and a 7th place finish, without ever having a final 6.

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So as usual, the structure at the Borgata is great. I ran a couple of untimely bluffs early on, and was down to half a starting stack by level two or three. By the end of the day, I turned that 15k stack into 150k. I ended day 1 in 4th.

Day two was more of the same. I lost two thirds of my stack early in the day, but then ended with 334k. I wrote about some of the hands on days 1 and 2 in my last blog if you are interested.

I won a ton of chips on the bubble of day 3. My table was playing really tight and it was obvious that these guys really wanted to make the money. There was one other player at my table trying to take advantage of the bubble, so he and I basically took turns stealing. I could have tried pushing him around as well, but he seemed a bit too stubborn for that to be profitable.

Unfortunately, all the chips I accumulated were lost in two hands. In one, I raised AK utg, and MazeorBowie (Stars player) was in the big blind. He had a stack of around 30 BB, and made a reraise that committed his stack. I called, and he was committed to call off the rest of his chips with AJ. He spiked a jack for the 450k pot.

The other hand was against the other guy that was raising a ton. I don’t remember the action, but I think I flatted him preflop. I flopped middle pair and turned trips, and he rivered me somehow. I don’t remember exactly what he had, but it was something like top pair with a gut shot, and he hit the gut shot, but no bets went in on the river because the board had 4 hearts or something. The action wasn’t really significant, but the pot was where the other half of the chips I stole on the bubble went.

I only made one all-in bluff the entire tournament, and that was towards the middle of day 3. I raised J9o from early position to 22k at 4/8. Two players called from middle position. Both players had just been moved to the table, either last hand, or the hand before it. The flop came Q88 rainbow. There’s a good chance both of them whiffed this flop, so I bet 45k. The first guy folded, and the second guy minraised me to 90k. Intuitively, I thought he was pretty weak, but more importantly, his raise just didn’t make sense. An 8 is a very small part of his preflop range, and IMO he is much more likely to call the flop than raise with an 8. He could have a queen, but again, a call seems more standard with a queen than a raise unless he has exactly AQ and is trying to get it in. He had roughly 250k behind, and I think he had me slightly covered. After 4 or 5 seconds, I announced all-in, and he insta folded.

I played pretty tight and straightforward (by my standards at least) for most of day three. I hit a pretty decent rush during the last level of the night. It started when I stole the blinds two hands in a row. The very next hand I raised AK and got 2 callers. The flop came A93 with a flush draw. One of the blinds led out, and I moved all-in. He tanked forever before folding.

The very next hand, I picked up aces and was shocked when my EP raise stole the blinds. I raised four hands in a row! Give me some action!
The next hand some dude raised my big blind blind. I had 53s, the antes were decently sized, and the raise was less than 3x, so I defended (I like to defend a lot, especially when there are antes and the raise is less than 3x). The flop came 642 all spades (I think I had diamonds). I checked, the guy bet, and I made a very large check raise (didn’t want him to draw cheaply, and I didn’t mind getting it in). Again the guy folded.

Mostly thanks to those five consecutive hands, I ended the day with about 800k.

Day four started with 27 players left, and I finally found some of those spots where chips just fell into my lap without me having to outplay anyone or work hard for them.

Some guy moved all-in from utg+2 for 9 big blinds, so I insta called with 88. He had QQ, but I shipped an 8 on the flop.

A little later the guy in the cutoff raised with a stack of around 22 BB. The small blind called, and I had A2s in the BB. This is a perfect squeeze spot, so I squeezed. I didn’t move all-in because the small blind had significantly more than 22 BB. The original raiser smooth called my reraise, leaving me with less than a pot sized bet left. I thought this was gonna be a really tough spot for me, because it didn’t look like I had much fold equity and didn’t know how many flops I could profitably c-bet all-in there. Well, I flopped a flush draw, and I think I had a gut shot too, giving me a no brainer push. The CO actually hemmed and hawed for a short while before calling with 88 (an overpair to the board). Again, I managed a suckout.

There were 15 million total chips in play in the tournament, and I had 1/5th of them when we combined to one table of 10 players.

I was at about 3 million when Thomas Hare owned me. At 15k/30k he opened to 100k. I called with 74s for a few reasons. I had a tight image, not only to the table, but also to Thomas Hare who played with me during my tightest phase of the tournament the day before. He saw that I showed down huge hands in all the pots where I put a lot of money in. Also, the whole table had been playing scared, with tight aggressive poker being played without many people contesting pots against raisers. And I think I had a pretty good read on Thomas’ hands, although admittedly I didn’t have a great read on his thinking process yet.

So I flatted 74s and the flop came A65 with a flush draw (not of my suit). He c-bet for 200k, and I made the biggest mistake I made the entire tournament. I made a big raise that obviously committed my stack. I figured that he will have an ace here significantly less often than 50% of the time, and there is already a lot of money in the pot for me to steal. When I do run into an ace, I have a solid 8 outs.

The problem is that Thomas Hare isn’t an experienced player. Instead of making the raise that I thought made my range look the scariest, I should have just moved all-in. An amateur player like Thomas is a lot less likely to put in any more chips against an all-in in a spot like this.

Anyway, Thomas never got the memo that my chips were committed to the pot, and he moved all-in with 99. I of course snap called, but missed. The final pot was just under 3 million, so I lost about half my stack in that hand.

Shortly after that hand there was a break which was great for me. We were down to 9 or 8 players, and I felt like this was going to be the 5 Diamond WPT all over again. I lost two huge pots in a row (one as a 70/30, the other 50/50) against the same player to finish 7th instead of making the final table. If I would have won either of those pots we would have been down to 6. During the break, Thorladen gave me a prep talk, and I went back in ready to own.

A couple hands after the break, Lee Watkinsin raised. He had about 24 big blinds, so I just moved in after looking down at AK. He folded.

A few hands later, David Tran raised. He had more chips than Lee had, so instead of moving in, I made a decent reraise with AK, hoping for David to 4-bet shove me.

That same orbit, Noah Schwartz raised from early position. I was ecstatic to look down at aces, but once again, my reraise got no action.

The first time I reraised, I thought there was a very good chance that the people at the table thought I was on tilt, so by the 3rd time, I thought for sure I was due for some action.

At 20/40, Gavin Griffin opened for 100k, and I looked down at AK again! I reraised to 330k. When it folded back to Gavin, he announced all-in. I had around 40 BB to start the hand, so I made the insta-call. Gavin flipped over QQ, and as I’m sure most of you know, I lost the coinflip to finish in 8th place.

So yeah, $135,000 is awesome, and another deep WPT finish is awesome, but just thinking about the way it went down makes me want to kill myself… not literally, but yeah, it hurts.

9 cashes over 75k, without a single one over 200k. Sure, people keep telling me that I’m only 22, and it’s amazing that I’ve even come close that many times, but that’s not much of a consolation.

The thing about tournament poker is that it’s really the only form where there is a large part of luck involved even for the professionals that put in huge sample sizes. When your annual expected income is only half of a major first place prize, there is bound to be a ton of variance. The problem is that in a given year, you can only expect a few deep shots at the huge scores. I’ve gotten even more than my fair share of those shots, but still haven’t been able to turn one into a huge score.

Meanwhile, there are guys like Gavin Griffen that have had three deep finishes in their life, and have finished 1st in all three. Gavin is a great player, and an even better person, but come on, that’s just absurd. This WPT made him the first person ever to win a WPT, WSOP and an EPT event, and he only has three big finishes. He has no cashes between 60k and 270k.

So yeah, I can’t help but feel a little bitter, and a bit jealous, when I think about how this keeps happening to me. I want to reiterate, that I love Gavin, and his accomplishment is truly an impressive one, even if I am bitter about it.

I’m done monkeying around. I’m going to win a major tournament. I don’t know when, or where, but I will. It’s only a matter of time.

My next chance will be this month at the Commerce WPT. Since the WPT is in town, I’m also going to try to force myself to play some cash games. I haven’t decided yet if I want to play the smaller tournaments. I guess it depends on how juicy the cash games are this month.

In the main event, however, I want blood. I will be taking no prisoners, and want that win soo badly.

I really believe I have been playing amazing poker so far this year, and I wrote that even before my huge finish this month at the Borgata. I’ve really been focused, playing my A game 100% of the time, and I plan to continue that.