Breaking through at 2009 WCOOP #26

posted by TitanLucky, 2 years ago (11 Oct 2009 21:10)



I'm eternally grateful that I discovered CMU and that you, the stakers gave me the opportunity to play in this and other prestigious events. It otherwise probably wouldn’t have happened. That would have been a shame, because I knew there was potential – I won the Betfair nightly tourney a week after starting to play poker, and knocked out Annette15 on the FT!

I joined CMU in the summer, got staked by MDMWINS to play a small $5 tourney and probably luckily, finished ITM. Then a certain Lordfohkus backed me in a couple of $2 x 180 mans and I did ok. My ROI was then strong and my game was good – I read the right books and tightened up a lot from the rag-ace calling station I was before. By hook or by crook, via CMU, we got to the WCOOP. The background and how the whole thing came together is kind of interesting and will stay with me as much as the result.

The weekend of WCOOP was a little odd. My wife was in Finland so on the Saturday morning at 6.30am I set off with the “local” Swiss farmers where I live in rural Switzerland on a weekend jolly. I had no idea what to expect except that we were going in convoy with 10 other tractor/trailers and 60 people across country and camping overnight and coming back Sunday evening (time undefined- brilliant for my poker!) All farmers and farmers daughters, woodcutters etc. One trailer of 6 local girls had 9 bottles of vodka and 18 bottles of wine in tow, and on our trailer they had put 4 car seats around a wooden table with holes to put your beer and even had a small fridge. I think we had 180 beers on board (5 people with the driver) and everyone seemed to be smoking. After 3 hours and about 7 or 8 beers everyone was ratted and I was worried whether I would be fit to play poker. Sunday seemed miles away. We were pulled for 7 hrs through woodland drinking continuously… Switzerland is such bliss!

On Sunday morning, having forgotten Saturday night, I didn’t fancy the drive back. I slept overnight in a Tipi in sleeping bag and people were starting again already before breakfast. Then a random guy in a car appeared and started to talk to the farmers. I figured he was from my area – we were 50km away in the middle of nowhere – so I cadged a lift back toward home, walked the last 5km and got home at noon.

The sheep had escaped, the dog had pissed on the floor, I had a hangover and no beer in the fridge. I reluctantly brewed coffee and drank water. Played a little poker in the afternoon and then came WCOOP.

I had managed to go pretty deep in a $8R $30k tourney on PS then overplayed AQ. DWAYNE and AQUARAIDER both helped me rethink AQ! I went back to my books and thought about what they had said. In my very first hand of the WCOOP, with AQs on the button, I folded to a 10BB raise. Thanks D & Aqua J

One of my stakers used Mikogo to watch the game LIVE for the full 18 hours. He will I am sure verify that I was running HOT! I started ok and managed to be around 4x starting chips in 2 hours. Then I flopped TTTT and made another 60%. I played really solid only seeing about 8% flops prior to FT. In the whole tourney I sucked out 3 times and 3 times was rivered for 3 huge pots, so, for any doubters, it all levelled out I believe and came down to skill J

The tourney started at 7pm in Europe so only became difficult to concentrate after about 7 hrs. I think the 7 hours coincided with ITM and the last dregs of beer. I was really on autopilot – going with my reads, making strong position plays and generally being very ballsy, but otherwise playing really tight. When we got toward the last 20, I broke through the 1M chips – they always say the first million is the hardest to make and by FT I had 4M+

The FT was odd. We had a couple of desperate shortstacks on the FT who wanted to chop immediately. This was all new to me. We looked at numbers and $50k minimum for everyone. A lot of money and I was about 6th. One guy said no and the cards were in the air.

I was being observed by CMU, keen not to blow out for $15-20k and picked spots to increase my chips, but the chip leaders (2) were double stack everyone else. There was some head butting amongst small-stacks and soon we were 4. The stubborn one was still there and so still no deal. Apparently he said he was very good, quoting a final table in a Mickey Mouse event. When his taxi arrived and we were down to three I was pretty pleased hading secured $140k .

The two chip leaders were butting horns and going deep into hands, so I sat tight and hoped they got all in. The place /$ differential were now $50k. Were playing huge blinds and antes – a new format for most. What I wanted was a raise from the first-in big-stack, and a call from the second and to be able to go OTT all in and hopefully get call(s), with a monster hand. When it did happen I doubled up rather than tripled. The proposed chop had limited upside for me so we continued but I was still short. Then I got my shot – AJ called by TT and a JXX flop. I was sick when another T came on the turn to fill his hand with the 2 outer. I was in 2nd if it had held up and feel would have had a real crack at winning.

$141k I think and really happy to return the Goodwill to my CMU stakers. I think with the recent success of many CMU players and stakers, we now have a community built on growing integrity and trust.

I think the WCOOP success has made me a better player and given me renewed belief to pursue my aggressive and slightly contrarian game. TonyG would love it J

Thank you again CMU.

Mark

Comments

midnitekowby (2 years ago - 12 Oct 2009 15:51 UTC) great read and congrats from your friends in Sligo

__DAVE__ (2 years ago - 12 Oct 2009 16:07 UTC) good read now for ftos D

SNB (2 years ago - 12 Oct 2009 16:10 UTC) Good read. I’ve made a breakthrough. I usually take the day off after a weekend bender. I don’t need rest, I need to play!

deadlyseal (2 years ago - 12 Oct 2009 16:32 UTC) yeah show us fotoos of all those swiss daughters you were talking about

midnitekowby (2 years ago - 12 Oct 2009 18:42 UTC) ya what was 6 young swiss comenly maidens and nine bottles of vodka in the back of a tractor in the woods and the wife away in finland!!!

rwestover (2 years ago - 12 Oct 2009 18:53 UTC) gj titan

themango69 (2 years ago - 12 Oct 2009 21:53 UTC) interesting read…good job and good luck in the future

admin (2 years ago - 13 Oct 2009 01:21 UTC) Thanks for the article !

Murskaaja (2 years ago - 13 Oct 2009 08:34 UTC) Intresting article, I like that kind of text. It’s nice to know some backround for this kind of success :)

andray (2 years ago - 13 Oct 2009 12:38 UTC) Awesome Job Titan.:)

havenrl (2 years ago - 13 Oct 2009 12:44 UTC) awesome titan, congrats again!

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