Poker Tournament Result: PokerStars Tournament #65105355

PokerStars Tournament #65105355,

No Limit Hold’emBuy-In: $4.00/$0.40 180 playersTotal Prize Pool: $720.00 Tournament started - 2007/10/24 - 22:30:51 (ET)

Dear Curtom,

You finished the tournament in 1st place.A $216.00 award has been credited to your Real Money account.You earned 218.47 tournament leader points in this tournament.

For information about our tournament leader board, see our web site athttp://www.pokerstars.com/tlb_tournament_rankings.htmlCongratulations!Thank you for participating.

Yes yes yes YES!!!!!!!!!

Another notch on the belt and victory in tow. This tournament played nicely. I started off OK and picked up a few chips early with some nice hands. I ended up doubling up when I hit a couple of sets and went into the break with about $3100 in chips. I think I picked up JJ and doubled up against AK. From there I kinda cruised to the money and then picked up KK to double up my anemic stack of 6k when we were down to the final 17 or so.

I picked up a few more chips and went to the Promised Land with about 16k. Not a whole lot but enough to make a run if I could just double up. Well, I waited it out and stole a few blinds until I got to about 11k and then the fireworks began. The stack to my right made a huge error by not raising from the small blind when it folded around to him. He then compounded the error by checking all the way to the river which allowed me to hit 2 pair. I pushed my last 8k and he called. He just had a pair of Kings and I doubled up to 27k.

From there I picked up KK and doubled up on what appeared to be a flush draw to my hyper aggressive opponent. He called with middle pair and then I was up to 57k and a full fledge contender for the prize.

Once we got down to 5 players the table got really tough and there was NOWHERE to hide either. I mean raises all over the place. To complicate matters the guy to my left was raising and re-raising his blinds. So, after I limped a couple of times with mediocre hands I adjusted accordingly. I picked up AJos in the small blind and it folded around to me. I limped and he raised it up another 6k. I IMMEDIATELY re-raised ALL-IN and he folded. That put the ka bosh on that crap and he stopped it. Like I tell you guys all the time. You may knock me out of the tournament with a great hand in that situation but you ARE NOT GOING TO RUN ME OVER! PERIOD!

After this message was sent he backed off and got “in line” for a while. That was enough time for me to double up again against the “other” hyper aggressive player at our table and now I was up to 110k and the Chip Leader. By then we were down to 3 players and I did not want to play heads up against my buddy to my left as I knew he would not particularly allow me to play after the flop no matter what he held. On the other hand I noticed that the other guy tended to be passive, see the history with the final 3 players, and would give up a pot if I bet hard at him.

Fortunately, a few hands later he got knocked out after he doubled up off of me when he hit the miracle straight on the river. It wasn’t that big of a deal as I still had plenty of chips but it was a bit annoying to say the least.

Once we were heads up I had about 60k to the big stacks 201k. I figured if I could just double up I would be able to punch him in the nose quite a bit without any problem. That is exactly what happened. Now sitting on the chips lead with about 138k I executed my plan perfectly. I began raising pots and picked up T4 on the button and made a standard raise of 3x the blinds.

The flop came down 4 4 X

The turn was 3

The river was 3

This gave me the nut Full Boat and he was holding KK and called my all-in bet. GAME OVER BABY!

You see, my opponent made a critical mistake by not re-raising with his KK. Most likely had he made re-raise I am folding T4 every day of the week. Instead he slow played his way into oblivion. I made this EXACT same mistake the last time I took second place so I know how he felt. The guy asked me, “What did he do wrong?” “How did I lose this thing?” I told him the truth in that I picked up a few hands and they held up. I didn’t mention anything about how he played the kings.

Let him figure that one out for himself

By the way. Several of my buddies both online and live have been telling me how much they really admire my game in that I am sooooooo patient with hands and seem to always make the Final Table. They have actually been following me from tourney to tourney online. That is incredibly humbling. Believe me, when another player tells you “you got game” in the poker world. It’s a BIG DEAL! I know I tend to preach patience and it’s not always the easiest thing to do depending on the makeup of your personality. I think the term for me would be Selective Aggression. Especially early in tournaments. Again, these guys will GIVE YOU there chips if you just allow them to make mistakes. It’s really as simple as that. Most men, by nature, tend to be hyper aggressive when performing in competitive activities. Most men also tend to be incredibly egotistical when competing as well. If you can learn to control these two things and use them with good CLEAR HEADED judgement you will find that your game will improve considerably. By no means do I consider myself “there” or a “great player”. However, I do believe that MOST of the time I make considerably fewer mistakes than MOST players. Therein lies the key. Limit your mistakes so that you lose as little as possible and DO NOT get involved in big pots without BIG HANDS like AA, KK, QQ early in tournaments unless you have the NUTZ. Later on you can open up a bit but early you want to play smart and let the bad players do what bad players do - give away there chips.

Deuces,

CIII