I've been back from Vegas for a while now since I came second in the Premier League, so thought I'd update the blog. I enjoyed playing and it was cool that Eddie rang to invite me as one of the 12. I think I was an obvious pick though since my tournament record is pretty sick in that I've basically won every heat I've played on TV and was unlucky not to win a title last year.
Going into the tournament I was quite confident and thought I had a strong chance of winning. I'd heard JC Tran was very good, but I'd never played him before. I didn't head in with any particular strategy as it's important to be able to adjust to the situation you're presented with at the time. It starts 150 big blinds deep, so I was happy enough with that and knew I'd be able to use my post-flop edge more than in other tournaments. I did commentate on one heat which is good for picking up on technical tells, and I think I showed that I had a good idea of my opponents' betting tendencies as I made outstanding all-in bluffs all week when I knew people were weak. As for physical tells, that's all rubbish.
I was involved in some interesting pots which should make good TV when they come out. The one with David Benyamine was a bit more tricky than normal as I was in a weird situation in that I was guaranteed a playoff spot from the start of the day but only needed three points for a guaranteed insta final table. I could have just folded out as it was right on the bubble, but fuck that, I'm not a nit.
Anyhow, on this hand I decided to limp under the gun with pocket jacks. Benyamine limped in mid-position and Vanessa Rousso checked the big blind. I knew Benyamine would try and take any edge so when he limped I was sure he was going to do his very best to take me off the pot at some point in the hand. The 9d-5d-2c flop was obviously great for my hand so I led for 30,000. Benyamine called, and so did Vanessa. The turn came an off-suit king. By now the pot was pretty big but I still had enough chips to fold out, but I didn't want to do that. At the same time, I'd rather get to showdown without risking all my chips so I checked and pretty much started telling Benyamine that I knew he couldn't have hit that king, but don't bet as I'm gonna have to shove. He did one of his angling little tanks before betting around 120,000, which I obviously didn't like that much. However, I knew what was happening in the hand, and felt I had to go with it. If he has K-9 or a set, fuck it, I'm in the playoffs and obviously a big favourite heads-up versus anyone in a best of three, so I just jammed for like 90,000 and he had to fold his 4-3. It was a sick own.
There were a number of hands in which I sick owned people. One was the 6-4 against Timoshenko, who's a really good player who made some great laydowns and was pretty unlucky on the whole. On this one hand, though, Vanessa limped and Timoshenko isolated to 16,000. I knew he could do this with a lot here as he can isolate a limp in position with a very wide range, so I repopped it to 36,000. Vanessa mucked and he thought for ages before making it 86,000. I knew that he knew that I knew he could be raising light with his isolation, so I just shoved pretty quickly for like 160,000 more thinking that although he's not going to have any two, he has a lot of non-premium hands that have to fold. When he didn't snap, I knew I was a genius and he eventually folded his K-J. This is probably the second biggest ever own on TV after the Ivey-Jackson hand but there wasn’t that much he could do once I made the final move.
Got some more hands I wanna talk about, but will post the rest tomorrow.
[Ed Note: click here to read the second part]