Ok… so it’s been a while since I’ve blogged…

The 5 Diamond in December was frustrating to say the least. In the three tournaments leading up to the main event, I busted out of the first two with KK all-in pre vs smaller pairs, and then the 3rd I busted with AA vs a flopped set. That hand was particularly frustrating because I could have folded to his flop check raise, but since I called the flop and none of his possible draws got there on the turn, I was basically forced to call his all-in on the turn.

My table draw on day 1 of the main event was really rough, mostly because Phil Ivey was directly to my left and got some chips donated to him early on (people calling off half their stack to him, then folding to the all-in, etc.). Early on it became apparent to me that he was trying to raise everyone off every pot, and this meant especially me since I was directly to his right.

During the second break, I went to talk to Scott Seiver about strategy. Mike Matusow was at his table and overheard me. I basically said (half jokingly) that I’m going to go broke with 1 pair vs. Ivey. I can’t fold anymore. Scott told me calling Ivey down light would be a terrible idea.

And of course, Matusow gave his standard speech of “Everyone thinks Iveys a maniac. Why do you think he makes so much money? He knows everything thinks he’s crazy so he’s never gonna bluff. He’s always gonna have it. Play pots against the other people at your table. Ivey’s the best player in this field. Why would you want to play pots out of position against the best player in the field?”

Long story short, I kept their advice in mind, and then after five minutes back at the table, realized how wrong they were. I ignored everything they said, called multiple barrels against ivey with 3rd pair, checked the nuts to him so he could bluff multiple streets, and ended up tripling my stack just from calling him down light.

So I took the Ivey challenge, and I passed!

Day two was the Dutch Boyd challenge. There was an ep limper. Dutch Boyd raised in LP. I reraised from the blinds. Dutch 4 bet half his stack. I had QQ and actually tanked for a minute. Every physical read I got off of him was nothing but weakness, so I stuck my chips in. He had half his stack in already, so he had to insta-call with 66. He flopped quads, and that’s how I lost a 150k pot at 500/1000 blinds to bust from the tourney. Sometimes being a 4.5-1 favorite just isn’t good enough.

Needless to say, I was pretty upset over that entire tournament series. I’ve been playing really well, although admittedly somewhat nitty compared to my usual game, and it just hasn’t been working out. I’ve been getting my chips in good, over and over. But sometimes that’s not enough. I felt so good after day 1 too. Playing against Ivey was unusually stressful for me, because he never put the brakes on. And after overcoming that horrid table draw day 1, only to bust in a huge pot with QQ vs 66 was especially frustrating.

I did have the luxury of being able to forget poker for a while after that. I went home (Fairfax VA, right outside of DC) for the holidays…. spent Christmas with the family, New Years Eve with my high school friends, etc. It’s always really nice getting to see everybody again.

Ok, instead of clumping everything into 1 blog, im gonna make this part 1. Part 2 (coming soon!) will be about the PCA. Sneak preview: I played 2 live tournaments at the same time, and cashed in both!

-Justin Bonomo