5th - Top 5 2009 Personal Poker Highlights

It was the week before last Xmas when i finally decided to book a trip to Australia and onto Thailand. On the back of my best year to date and having had such a great time at the Aussie Millions that January it seemed like a no brainer in the end. I had high hopes for 2009 at this time and was definitely riding a successful wave from the omaha cash games online.

Number 5 on my list covers three live tournaments between 8th and 12th January.

I arrived in Australia late in the evening on the 7th Jan and by 4:30pm the next day i was in my first event, an au$ 1,150 satellite to the main event. I know i pretty much just played my cards that tourney. I won hands that just played themselves including flips but never got it in bad. Six hours later and i was over the moon at securing a main event au$ 10,500 seat.

The following day was an au$ 1,050 live event with 2 starting days. I wasnt too tired so entered day 1a. I have never flopped so many sets in a live tournament and at the end of the day i was sitting on a very nice stack. http://www.pokernews.com/news/2009/01/2009-aussie-millions-event-1-day-1a.htm

After day 1b had finished I was 9th in chips but basically joint 5th in reality. 731 players had entered and 110 remained going into day 2 with 72 being paid. Obviously i had high hopes and returned full of confidence. Abuse of the bubble was successful but i did lose a key pot Q6 vs AK to knock me back to my starting stack. I then peaked my stack at 93k before dropping away. Blinds caught me up and completely card dead day 2 as a whole as well. I could have gambled with a 22 when i was reraised but thought i would find more +ev spots at that time. I was still a good stack when i did bust raising allin on a J9x flop with KQ , utg raiser had QJ so i regret not reraising preflop with hindsight. Finished 41st in the end for au$ $3,290 which looking back was a good result but obviously at the time i was very disappointed.

Right i could lie and say it was 3 live tournament cashes in a row but it wasnt. After the bust above i played an au$ 1,050 the same day and got very drunk and obviously bust sharpish. The next day i entered the au$ 1,100 omaha hi lo limit game but bust 4 hours in. I almost went on omaha cash tables but in the end decided to enter the au$ 1,150 satellite at 6:15pm instead. Several hours later the fun really started when a guy i had only met the night before and got completely wasted with moves to my table. After an hour or so we were both stacked and "safe" with something like 12 seats and 15 players left. He totally understood satellite strategy so basically if he raised i was out of the pot and vice versa. I had won 2 flips for my tourney life in the whole and apart from that pretty much cruised into the seat this time. So au$ 10,500 cash in the end and a bizarre set of circumstances saw me make a new poker buddy http://pokerdb.thehendonmob.com/player.php?a=r&n=76956 who i ended up sharing a condo with in vegas for the 2nd half of WSOP in June.

These 3 live results helped towards my best ever month at that point and set up a good foundation for me in 2009.