I started the tournament off slow, but then thing quickly turned around, after about 40 minutes I had went from 3k to almost 9k in chips and was sitting pretty comfortable. One thing I have noticed about Gus' strategy is that he does not go for a lot of big bluffs, however the crazy table image you get, will cause other people to make crazy bluffs against you. Weird dichotomy there, but it works out nicely. By the time we were almost through hour 2 (when the antes come in... which Gus' explains is when you really have to turn it up and steal a lot of pots) I had a very nice stack. I then got hot, people overplaying their hands vaulted me into the chip lead in the middle of hour 3... sitting with about 50k.
This was perfect, Gus' ideas work best when you are able to build a big stack, then use it to run over the table. This is where I was at, and not really paying attention to the status of the tournament or my chip stack anymore (since I knew I had everyone covered). I went into attack mode, stealing blinds whenever possible, and when I did get called I often won the pot on the flop with a continuation bet. My stack steadily rose without much effort, or "big pots". I cruised with the chip lead all the way down to the money bubble. 835 people started the tournament, and 101 people would make the money. I definitely turned up the pressure when we got close to the bubble, and my table definitely noticed it. I got a few comments from my table mates, but aside from a few words, they weren't willing to actually stand up to me. The bubble bursted, and it was time to make a run to the final table. I needed to keep the pressure on people, and hope they didn't figure out what was going on and fight back. Turns out the large majority of people who play 24+2 tournaments on FTP, don't know how to fight back, because for the next few hours I ran over my table, slowly building up and keeping my chip lead. In no time, we were down to 18 players left. I still had a healthy stack, and unfortunately, my table had a few big stacks as well. One of them who decided to start fighting back. I had about 225k at my new table, then in the next 15 hands or so, was down to 175k, because one guy kept getting frisky. But hat was ok, in no time I had some hands hold up, and got back in the rhythm of the table.
12 people left.
I was very fortunate in this tournament that I had some big gifts late. I did have one bad hand where I called off 2/3 of my chips with AQ on an Ahigh board, and the other big stack had a set of 3's. I regret that call, but that crazy guy quickly doubled me up twice with very subpar hands (called my allin shove with K3o, my TT held... and when I turned 2 pair and I raised him, he shoved over the top with Thigh, drawing dead, so that was nice). I had quickly recovered from my misstep.
I had the maniac on my right who had doubled me up twice but still had a big stack. Then the key for me turned out to be the two very weak players on my left. We fairly quickly made our way to 7 players left, the final table bubble. Durring the time at this table where I took the big hit, and was at only about 1/2 the average stack, the thing that kept me afloat was that EVERY time I was on the button, the SB and BB folded to my raise. There was only 1 time where the BB called, then folded to my flop bet. There blinds and antes kept me afloat while I was waiting for my double ups.
Got to the final table, which progressed quickly. A tight short stack on my left had AK v my AT, and I made a flush. A couple of good holds, and continuing to keep on the pressure and stealing blinds, and we were down to 4 handed. Then I busted the maniac on my right, I don't exactly remember the hand, but I think I had JJ in the BB, and he shoved with a weak hand that had 1 over and that was it for him. 3 handed was interesting because me and the guy on my left each had over 1mil in chips, where the 3rd guy was very shortstacked with 100k. He got up to 180k, but then I was able to knock him out and we were on to HU play.
This HU match was kind of weird, for the first 20 minutes or so, my opponent never raised preflop, he kept limping. So I played small ball for a while, and was down just a bit. A little bit later I turned up the volume and started putting more pressure on him, this was working, as I had a small lead 1.4mil to 1mil. I thought I was going to win when the board read KT9x, and I had KT, got it allin only to find out he had KT as well, so we chopped. I found out that this player was very predictable and wouldn't bluff, so I had to keep winning small pots and wear him down. At the beginning of the HU, I played a little weaker while trying to guage him, and that let him get a small early lead. But no more, this guy was going to face pressure whenever possible. He kept limping preflop, and I kept taking the pots down with flop or turn bets. I told my friend on AIM "I don't want to win every limped pot, but he won't let me fold". I won a big pot with trip Aces where he bet the flop and turn, then folded to my shove, which took him down to 500k. I continued to grind him down to about 330k, when I got 99 in the SB. I limped because he so often folded to my raises, but I had been limping a fair amount so it wasn't an obvious slowplay. He raised to 90k, and I insta shoved, he called of the rest of his chips with A8o, and I held up. Ship it! Thank you Gus Hansen, the madman genius, just padded my bankroll with $3,565.45, well surpassing my monthly goal. Here is the screen shot of the end... with a guy on the table asking me to send him some cash since he had been railing for me, lol.
Recap:
I felt like I played great, I felt like I was in control the entire tournament. It helps that I was running well, and hitting flops at the right time. But staying in attack mode was key, and also helped me to not sit an worry about avg stack, people left, etc. Which is one thing I usually spend a lot of time doing late in tournaments. I'm not disillusioned enough to believe I will dominate a ton of tournaments now, because I won't run that well all the time. But we will see how tournaments in the future go. I am going to mostly stick to cash games still just because of the convenience. I can sit and play for an hour, where tournaments a very time consuming.
Shoutout to sfman22 who railed me durring the final table. Exclaiming "BOOOOM ROASTED" whenever I won a pot, that was fun to watch. Also to Tuckr who watched me at the end (it always seems to help you play better when you know a good player is watching you), and gave me some advice on hands from time to time, but not too much, he let me do what I had to do.
6.5 hours paid off big. $3565 is huge, + the 17 KOs I had at 4 dollars a pop. Now I'm sitting on a $5,100 bankroll. Which leaves me with alot of options which I will discuss in a later post as I decide what to do with this big cash. Now I'm gonna go enjoy my Valentine's day.
-Boooom
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