Aussie Million Details

The tournaments were both exciting but also disappointing. I did well in the first tourney (World Speed Poker Championships) and made the final 36 people which be aired on TV. The final 6 tables of 6 people made the money and were televised with hole-card cameras. Unfortunately, I busted first at my table!.....but I did win $1600. I had AKsuited twice up against the same players's pocket KK at a six-handed table. The first time I was shortstacked and reraised all-in. I hit an Ace on the flop and doubled-up. I played well for the next 45 minutes or so and moved my original 10k in ships up to 27k (average was 20k). Then the 2nd AKsuited against pockest Kings came...I reraised a shortstack to 7k and the pocket Kings re-raised all in to 23k. He had rerasied me twice in the last 45 minutes and I had to fold...I thought he was putting a move on me so I called with AK of clubs. He turned up his Kings again(!) and I lost. I was down to about 4500 in chips and lost an AJ to KQ on my final hand...Oh well, I only had 10 seconds to make the AKs decision and my instinct told me to call and I was getting 2-to-1 on my 16k call. In hindsight, I am sure I would have layed down this hand with more time but I only 10 seconds and my first gut was to call....oh well.

The main event tourney had 267 people with 40 spots paying. I busted out 57th and was very bummed as I played for 12 hours on the first day (54 moved on to the second day) and never got any good cards. My only high pocket pairs were 10s twice and Kings once in 12 hours of play!!!! My only mistake was laying down pocket 7s against Mike Sexton who was at my table from the beginning. The average stack was about 39K and I had 26k. I made a normal size raise to 4k and Mike moved his last 11.5K all-in on the button. It was 7.5K call for me to win 19K (with the blinds). I decided to fold pre-flop as 1) I thought I was beat 2) by folding I would still have 22k which was only one double-up from average chips 3) If I called and lost I would have only had $15k in chips with blinds and antes of almost 4k a round. Well, I talked to him afterwards and he had A-Q suited which would have made me the favorite to win the pot and if I had won I would have had 41k in chips and moved on to the second day and the money. I didn't get any cards for the next hour and went broke in the little blind when it was folded to me and I moved my final 9k in chips with j-8 to win the 4.8k in blinds and antes. Unfornutately, the big blind woke-up with pocket QQs and that was that. It was a good experience but I'm still bummed because I felt good and thought I could have done well with some cards. Ironically, Mike Sexton went on to finish 11th and won $30k.

Eric