Best poker day of the year so far

Yesterday, I had my biggest net gain in a single day this year in fact, I think it is my best day ever.

My first big MTT win of the year, could not have come in a better tournament as far as I am concerned. Somehow I managed to muff my way to victory in the Bad Beat WSOP qualifer on Poker Poka. The tourney only had 42 runners but with 2k added from bad beat it was very good value. It was a $5 buyin, with 1 rebuy and 1 add on allowed.

I started off quite well, managing to pick up a couple of pots, then I joked about having to get rid of my chips so I could rebuy, well it didn't take long before I had too. I limped in with 9d8d and the flop came 9 high with two diamonds. I bet out and got rr by bigadzc, at this stage, I thought, well I have top pair, flush draw and a gutshot to boot, so went all in. big called and showed A9, I didn't improve and had to rebuy. I got to the add on period with just 1200 chips and took the add on.

I didn't get any hands for a while and then my run of luck started, I decided to go for a button steal all in with A8/7 can't remember and walked into bigadzc QQ on the BB, the ace on the turn gave me a welcome double up. I later dodged another bullet when I was all in with 10/9 soooooted on a SB steal walking into 88, a king on the river gave me a k high str8 and I knocked the unfortunate BB out of the tourney (sorry, can't remember who I muffed)

It was survival then, until all of a sudden it was down to the last 4 or so and I was happy as I was in the money. Then the defining hand came.

I am not that familiar with Poker Poka and I am not to keen on the layout, but when I attempted a button steal with Qc9c I had not noticed that knockknock had already min raised. He then flat called my RR. The dream flop of x 9 9 came down then. I had hit the lottery. I decided to check, so did he. I think the turn bought a K. I put a small bet out to look like I was fishing and he flat called. The river then bought the last 9 to give me quads, I just had to check and hoped he took a stab at it, I was right to do so as he lead out with a 20k bet. I obvisouly pushed all in, then he realised he was shot and folded, this was an 80k + pot and put me in the chip lead. I then just sat back and played my hands when they came and ironically ended heads up with bigadzc who I had muffed his QQ earlier to survive.

big had been slow all and quiet all game, he then started to talking and it turns out that he had just lost a heads battle up on laddies in the weekly wsop final and had lost a wsop seat. I was gutted for him until he mentioned he got 10.5k for 2nd, which is not a bad.

The defining hand came when I pushed with AK and he called with QJ sooted, no cards helped either of us and my AK took down the pot and the $800 first prize, which is my 3rd ever biggest total. I could not of been any happier to win a tourney of this quality. Although I do think a lot of the players were concentrating more on on the dream team event, which helped.

While this was going on I also managed to come 3rd in the 20:30 $5 f/o on laddies for $177 dollars so a very profitable day.

I also have to mention the magnificent performance of the LeagueNutz boys in the Dream Team, as a proud member of the LeagueNutz site, it was great to see 6 of my fellow Nutzers play so well, in particular fryern and Jat to come 1st and 4th, truly a great performance and a great Bad Beat WSOP/Dream Team for the LeagueNutz players. Hopefully this will bring more attention to the site and get the extra players that the site deserves and especially as it was Graham (moffmans) birthday yesteday, so it felt like a nice present from us to him for all his hard work and effort he puts into the site on a daily basis. We all owe him a big thank you.

Anyway, no poker today as its ENGLAND day and another massive hangover in the making.