As most of you probably know, I finished 11th in the Main event in the PCA (A World Poker Tour Main Event). It was EXTREMELY disappointing. My mom flew down to watch me play, so the pressure was on. I caught a sick run of cards, and doubled up in the first 20 minutes without showing down a single hand. I’m sure the entire table thought I was going crazy since they never got to see how good my hands actually were.

I was second in chips with 2.2 million when a huge hand came up. It folded to me on the button and I looked down at kings. I opened to 45k (blinds were 8/16) and the chipleader in the small blind reraised me to 165k. Isaac had been playing pretty tight so far today, but it was still very early. The day before he had been playing pretty loose. People were referring to him as Jamie Gold because of how hot he was running. He was only 21 years old, and I felt like he was pretty inexperienced w/ live play and I had picked up a few tells on him. Anyway, the dealer pulled in my 45k bet, and I pushed in 400,000 more chips. Isaac thought for about 15 seconds before announcing, “all-in.”

Instantly I said, “I think I have to call.” I looked at Isaac, and he was super calm. He clearly wasn’t the least bit nervous, and given that there were only 11 players left in the main event, he was first in chips, and I was second in chips, this would be the time for him to appear nervous. I did what most people do with kings, and I called his all-in. Sure enough, he flipped over aces. His hand held up, and I was out of the tournament.

Obviously everyone keeps telling me it’s a cooler hand and given my image and the way Isaac plays, there’s no way I could have gotten away from it. I disagree. I think I had a relatively easy fold. Given the tournament situation, even if he only has AA 30% of the time, and AK 60% of the time (and smaller pairs 10%), I still only win the hand 55% of the time, and that’s pretty much the best case scenario. In reality, especially given my read, I will be shown AA a lot more than 30% of the time there. I’m very upset with myself for calling there, and feel like I blew a huge chance.

My mom had only been watching me for 45 minutes by the time that had happened, so I felt even worse about it. To keep getting that deep in major tournaments, only to get knocked out like that is just really depressing.

There was a $2500 tournament the next day, and I was awake before it started, so I decided to play. It was a small field with only 175 players, but it was pretty tough. A lot of the top internet tournament players were in it. Anyway, I felt I owed it to my mom to do well in this tournament, so I decided to just outright win it. No chops or anything. And that’s what I did. It was great to finally take a tournament down, especially with my mom there to watch. She was super excited. It paid $123,000, and if I’m not mistaken, it will give me 612 Player of the Year points. Even though my 11th place in the WPT didn’t get me any points, I should be in 5th overall thanks to the win. Obviously it’s still extremely early, but it’s nice to start off with some points.

I think “everyone” pretty much already knew about my 11th place finish, but there was no coverage on my win, so very few people know about it. It doesn’t even show under my Cardplayer results yet.

Lately I’ve been on a siiiiick run. Since December 6th, I’ve played seven tournaments, and here are my results from them:

12/06/06 – 5 Diamond Event #5: $5000 Buyin
8th Place: $16,465

12/08/06 – 5 Diamond Event #7: $2000 Buyin
4th Place: $42,565

12/09/06 – 5 Diamond Event #9: $3000 Buyin
(somehow I didn’t make the money in this tournament. I must have gotten really unlucky!)

12/11/06 – 5 Diamond Event #10: $5000 Buyin
5th place: $53,635

12/19/06 – 5 Diamond Main Event: $15,000 Buyin
7th place: $152,230

1/9/07 – PCA Main Event: $8,000 Buyin
11th place: $77,702

1/10/07 – PCA $2500 Buyin
1st place: $123,750

Total: $466,347

Seven tournaments and I-ve only missed the final eleven once! This run is just unreal sick and I have no idea how to qualify it. Obviously I-m playing some amazing poker, albeit with a few mistakes (including the KK hand above that I still hate myself for).

People keep asking me if I keep getting super lucky. Except for the 2k event (where I just got absurdly lucky), I’ve only had a few small suck outs, and I have certainly taken my fair share of bad beats. Obviously it’s not possible for even the best player on the planet to run this well without getting lucky, but my luck has been in a different form than what most players ask about. When you run this hot, every bluff you make works. Every value bet you make gets called. You lose your share of coin flips, but win the few crucial ones that involve most (or even all) of your chips. Also, the structures have been great so there has been a lot of room for me to outplay people after the flop.

I just got into Tunica last night, so I won’t have any time to rest in between all these tournaments. After this I’m going directly to the Borgata, so things are going to be extremely busy. Even after that I will be playing tournaments virtually non stop. I have to admit, I love my odds of doing very well in the Player of the Year race.