WWdN Afterthoughts

Hey thanks for everyone who noticed my WWdN win. Hoy, yes you are right. This was my first victory in an organized blogger event. As I said in my last post, I really don't get a chance to play too many of them. This was about my 10th try if you include all the DADI, WWdn, MATH, Big Game, and blogger freerolls I have been in. I have held my own I think in the ones I have played. Having the chip lead semi-late in a few of the DADI tournaments before taking some ridiculous 2 and 3 out beatings that prevented me from a run at the title (dig through the archives for those interested). I took third in a 1k blogger freeroll after the wife pulled the plug on me late at the final table (see nuclear option). And of course a couple decent showings in the recent Big Games. In fact, I see me leading the triple crown of BG1+BG2+WWdN. Ahead of even the infamous Iakaris if you count just those three. I am pretty much not allowed to play online until about 10pm pacific on weeknights due to family obligations. Tuesday, the wife was working late, and I had the bug, so I jumped into the WWdN.

The tournament just went extremely well for me. One of those nights when the stars are all aligned. I felt I played it pretty well. My final table play was as perfect as I can squeeze out of my game at this point. I had tons of chips the whole way, and that really opened up my options. Early on, I just felt like opening my game up a bit. Getting A4 over and over again helped. I wanted to come over the top of Iak a lot preflop with my position, and did with A4 once. I really did not care if I got knocked out doing it (I guess because of the low buy-in). So I was looking like some maniac to a bunch of players that have not played against me very much. My overpair probably gets paid because of this and I get some chips to work with early.

When I jump out early in a tournament it really helps my chances. I don't feel pressed at all, and can sit back and play my game. I think that is why I do well in the double stack structure. It gives me the time to get in enough profitable situations to overcome the slow drain from my ubertightness. Now I think for anyone jumping out to a lead in a tournament helps their chances, so I am not saying much here.

My other patented approach is to skim the bottom all the way to the final table and try to get lucky.

So I played pretty wild early, locked down to ubertight mode, and kept chipping up. This was easy because I won all my coinflips and people wanted to get out of my way when I was involved in pots. At the final table I was pretty aggressive. It's one of the advantages of building up a tight image. You can grab some pots late, from those who have been paying attention to your apparent "weakness".

The key hand by far was the coinflip I decided to take with Spock at the final table. I was basically willing to flip a coin for 5th place money ($20 something), or 1st place ($132). I had a good read on the rest of the table, and was almost positive I could close it out if I won the hand. I won, which actually put pressure on me not to blow it. I picked and choose my spots real well after that and was able to knock the rest of the players out without really taking any risks. I really think that is the way to play it out. I have seen many a bigstack at the final table be a little to eager to end it, and end up not getting the win. I had to get this win.

There was one crazy hand from the tournament where Wes Hoyed me preflop, leaving $1 behind. I called, and flopped a hand. I bet the flop, and Wes folds when getting over 2000-1 pot odds. That's some crazy shit.

My run was not exactly mistake free. There was a guy who had been sitting out the whole tourney at our table. His stack was almost gone, and had not had a chance to steal yet. I ended up popping it up to T600 to get through two players to get to SoxLovers 75 SB, and the other guys 70 all-in BB. SoxLover, who had already pushed over the top in similar situations a few times, pushed in again and I had to release the hand. 600 to steal 145 in blinds from MP with crap. Brilliant.

I have never really run through a tournament like that so it was a blast. If there is any blueprint here it is:

1) Get some chips early so you never need to do anything stupid.
2) Win all of your coinflips.
3) Pick your spots semi-carefully when leveraging your big stack.

Not really the lucko approach, but works for me.