I look forward to the PCA every year. The Atlantis resort in the Bahamas is the perfect spot to getaway from the cold of winter. Some of my fondest memories are from the PCA.

I first played it five years ago when I was 19. It was my 2nd WPT ever and I managed to cash in it (30th). On the bubble I had a table full of internet phenoms. We all told each other our online names and had some good chats. There was one 18 year old kid at the table who wouldn’t give his online name. He claimed we would all know how he played if he told us. He ended up making a terrible call for all his chips against a super-nit that obviously had the nuts. He bubbled finishing 2 or 3 spots off the money. Afterwards, when he said his online name was HoldemNL, we all laughed because none of us had a clue who this egotistical nobody was. Some of you reading this might be familiar with him. He goes by the name Durrrr these days.

I have met a lot of my closest friends at the PCA: from underage online superstars like Ozzy87 to even future girlfriends.

In 2007, my third year playing in the PCA, I was on a hot tourney streak. I had just turned 21, and I final tabled 4 of the last 5 tournaments I had played (all of which were at the Bellagio 5 Diamond). I continued that streak with a deep run in the PCA main event. I flew my mom down when I made the final two tables. I warned her I was short on chips and wasn’t likely to make the final table. She didn’t care. On the start of the next day, I doubled up without a showdown in the first 30 minutes. My mom’s plane got in as that was going down, and when she finally walked into the casino, she got to see that I was 2nd in chips. Within 15 minutes of her showing up, I got KK all-in vs Isaac Haxton’s AA (he was the chipleader) to bust in 11th place. I didn’t know Isaac at the time, but now he’s one of my best friends.

It was super disappointing to have my mom see me bust like that, but I found a way to make up for it. I played the $2500 MTT the next day and finished 1st! My mom was watching me the whole time.

This year’s PCA was supposed to get 1400 players for the main event. There was also going to be a 25k High-Roller event that I was really psyched to play.

Day 1 of the Main Event was a roller coaster. I built up to 50k chips rather quickly despite playing fairly tight and not winning any huge pots. I never really lost any of the pots I played on the way to 50. I lost about 20k back with AQ vs JJ on the AJx flop. It was one of those spots where I could have gotten away if the guy had more chips. That and a couple small losses brought me back down to 18k chips. At 400/800 I got moved to a new table. Unlike my first table where I knew everyone, I had the distinct pleasure of knowing no one! I got very lucky to win 2 huge pots, one of which I got all of my chips in with QQ vs KK preflop, and the other where I was a slight favorite with a huge draw against 1 pair. Those 2 double ups, plus a couple of small pots brought me up to 120k in less than an hour.

I had a lot of confidence at the dinner break. Not because I had so many chips, but because my table was perfect. I had a few good players to my right, and then a sea of no names to my left, and they had all been playing tight. That… and Nobu instills confidence in even the most arrogant of men. After the dinner break my plan was to loosen up and try to run over the table a bit. I set a stop loss of 20k chips. It only took me 15k chips to realize that this plan was not going to fly. It was like the old players at my table had been tagged out for their care-free counterparts… or maybe they were just all playing tight trying not to screw-up before dinner time. Oh well, I had a lot more where those 15k chips came from.

Minutes later I ran QQ into KK again. This time I did not suck out. Then it was my turn to run a made hand (two pair I think?) into a draw. I did not win that either. Next thing I knew I was down to a normal tournament stack of twenty-some big blinds. I raised A5s in the CO. The button called. The flop came 678 with a flush draw, and a back door flush draw for me. I check raised all-in. My opponent called with KJ and the flush draw. I did not win that hand either.

And that’s how I went from 18k, to 120k in less than an hour, only to lose it all back in an hour. I was not happy.

Two days later was the $25k high roller event which I was psyched about. There were a few soft spots at the table when I sat down, and then one by one, the good players either showed up late, or replaced the weaker players at my table. Having Antonio Esfandiari directly to my left was particularly annoying. We were playing 500 BB’s deep, and unfortunately for me, Antonio knew exactly how to adjust to playing this deep. This meant I had to play super nitty in certain spots. It’s not always as fun, but sometimes it’s necessary.

I played an interesting hand at 100/200 with a 25 ante. I had 65k to start the hand, Eli Elezra had 28k, and Greg Raymer had about 50k. I raised AA utg+1 to 600. Greg called out of the small blind, and Eli reraised to 3k in the BB. I decided to just call. A big part of the reason I just called was that Greg had been playing unusually loose and spewy. I knew he was freerolled into this tournament, so I was hoping he was playing it just like any other freeroll. I wasn’t afraid to let him into the pot. Greg called after I did.

The flop came J75 with a flush draw of a suit I didn’t have any of. Eli bet 5600, and I raised to 12.5k planning to get it in. Greg then moved all-in, and this board was so draw heavy that I still wasn’t planning on folding… until Eli moved all-in. I would have called either one of them in a heart beat, but I couldn’t call both. I folded quickly. Greg flipped up 86s (no flush draw), and Eliz had top set. The turn blanked, and the river was an ace. I cried on the inside since a bad call would have given me a huge stack. Oh well.

I wasn’t running great. In the first four levels, I lost with AA, KK, QQ, and a flopped two pair. Somehow, I still managed to slowly rebuild back up to a starting stack. The weaker players were busting, and I eventually realized I was at the toughest table I’ve ever been at in all the poker I’ve ever played.

Seat 1: Ivan Demidov
Seat 2: Steve “MrSmokey1” Billirakis
Seat 3: Sorel Mizzi
Seat 4: Eli Elezra
Seat 5: Danny Alaei
Seat 6: Vivek Rajkumar
Seat 7: Me
Seat 8: Antonio Esfandiari

The tournament field wasn’t actually all that tough. I looked around and every other table had at least two soft spots. Ours unfortunately had a grand total of half a soft spot.

At 400/800 Eli opened in the HJ to 2300. Danny called in the CO. I called in the SB with 85 of hearts, and Antonio called in the BB. The flop came 963 with two hearts giving me a pretty decent draw. I checked, Antonio bet 8.1k, Eli folded, Danny called, and I shoved for 45k. Antonio thought for a minute or two before moving all-in for a ton of chips, and Danny instantly called off over a hundred thousand more. Antonio flipped up Q9 of clubs, and Danny had two red aces. I was pretty happy to have 44% equity in this 3 way pot, but sadly after the turn and river came, my equity was 0.

I had one more day of tournaments left in me for this trip. Only I couldn’t decide if I wanted to play the 5k or the 2k Battleship. For those of you unfamiliar with it, the Battleship is a HU event played on a laptop. You sit directly across from your opponent, so even though you are playing online, you still get to look him in the eyes.

The battleship started at noon, and the 5k at 1, so I decided to play both. If I lost first round of the battleship, I could focus on the 5k, and it was highly unlikely that I would still be in both tournaments in a few hours. Unfortunately I got put in the last bracket of the battleship which meant I wouldn’t play until 3:30. By that point, blinds were 100/200 in the 5k. I had lost some of my 10k stack before I picked up a few hands in a row. I made a joke about trying to bust before having to leave to play my HU match in a minute. As my big blind came up, I told the table I would play one more hand before leaving. Some guy in late position raised my blind, and I looked down at 99. I shoved for whatever I had left which was only 5k. My opponent insta-called expecting me to flip up something like 63s, and was not happy to find his 88 was beat. I held up, and ran off to face Christian Harder in the battleship.

I wanted to take advantage of the live/online format, so I spent the first few hands watching his face carefully. I didn’t pick up anything. Then I realized my impatient habit of moving my mouse over the fold button before it even appeared. I’m very fortunate that I’m aware of tells like this that I give off. Not only does it make them easy to cover up, but it also gives me a very useful perspective on what tells my opponents may be giving off. For the rest of our match, I stared at Charder’s left hand, and was able to notice him moving his mouse before it was his turn to act. When he moved his hand closer to the laptop, he wanted to fold. When he moved his hand away from the laptop, he had a hand he wanted to play. He didn’t do this every hand obviously, but it was very useful the few times where he signaled his intentions. After I won the match, I ran back to the 5k. I hadn’t lost too many chips.

I went on a tear in the 5k. When it was time for my next battleship match at 5:30, I had so many chips in the 5k that blinding off was a non-issue. I won again in the battleship.

I called a shortstack shove with QQ in the 5k. Kajta Thater moved all-in over the top. This was her 3rd all-in in two orbits. I called fairly quickly and lost about half my stack to her aces. I still had plenty of chips. I grinded a pretty average stack for a few hours.

7pm rolled around, which was the dinner break, but sadly, I couldn’t leave. I had a battleship match to play in 30 minutes. I won my 3rd round which meant I was now in the money. Wouldn’t it be crazy if I cashed in both tournaments? The battleship would pause until tomorrow at 12:30, and the 5k wouldn’t restart the next day until after 3. This meant there would be minimal conflict tomorrow. All I had to do was focus on the 5k for the night. The next thing I knew, we were down to 27 players, which meant I was in the money in two tournaments at once!

Unfortunately the next day the battleship didn’t go my way. I felt like I had a decent edge on my opponent, but I ran card dead while he got hit by the deck. A couple coolers later and I was out of the battleship with 8k as my consolation prize.

In the 5k I had Peter Eastgate to my right for a good chunk of the day. He had a monster stack, and was playing very loose. For the most part, the table was letting him. I’m pretty sure that Peter didn’t know who I was, which worked towards my advantage. I kept a pretty tight image that allowed me to 3-bet Peter with air a few times. I wasn’t opening many pots, so it looked like I was playing only premium hands. At 2k/4k blinds, a somewhat loose online player opened to 10.5k in EP. Peter 3-bet him to 33k, and it looked like the type of 3-bet spot that a player like Eastgate was unlikely to pass up on with anything resembling a hand. I decided to cold-4bet shove my T9o for 120k, and increased my stack by a pretty decent margin when they both folded.

Eventually the blinds got huge, and there were all-ins all over the place. I was fortunate to win all the coinflips where I was all-in, but I lost all the coinflips that gave me a chance for a huge chip stack. With 8 players left, Peter Eastgate made a standard open raise. I had AJo on the button and an average stack (which in this tournament meant only 19 big blinds). I moved all-in, and unfortunately for me, one of the blinds woke up with AK. I did not suck out, and was out of the tournament. I got $32,000 for my efforts (plus $8,000 from the battleship). Unfortunately I also played a 25k and a 10k on the trip, which meant despite two cashes, I still lost money. Somehow that doesn’t stop people from congratulating you. I must say I find it particularly frustrating being congratulated on losing money. But of course, instead of pointing that out, I simply said “thank you”.

Even though I didn’t win money on the trip, I still had a blast. I really do love the PCA, and I’ve gone deep in so many tournaments there. Playing two tournaments at once for two days straight was a new experience for me, and it was some of the most fun I’ve ever had playing poker. I can’t wait to try it again next year!

-Thanks for Reading
-Justin Bonomo