[ilya]

First of all I want to say I had a great time meeting everyone & playing in the tournament. Big props to Irie, especially, for turning what could easily have ended up as just a good idea into reality & for making everything run so smoothly. I'm already looking forward to the next one.

The bulk of my preparation for the tournament consisted of lowering my expectations to the point where I felt quite calm about the prospect of going 0-2. After my first match with Lucky, however, even 0-2 seemed a pretty optimistic prediction. One big problem was that Lucky clearly knew what he was doing. Another was that I was much too sober to overcome my natural timidity. The highlight of the match was a brilliant all-in call with Ace-high that I made only as a consequence of misreading my hand. Thinking that I was holding AdJd, I happily went berserk on a rag flop with 2 diamonds. Only after calling Lucky's re-(re?)-raise for my last few chips and flipping over my hand did I realize that my actual hand was AHEARTSJd. Luckily for me, Lucky was on a flush draw himself....not that it mattered in the long run, as I was playing so passively that winning a big pot could only delay the inevitable.

While drinking some Heinekens and waiting for my 2nd round match, I ran into Jman. He'd seen me call down with a vulnerable top-pair hand in my first match, and told me that if I was gonna have any chance I would have to start raising some hands besides straights and flushes. Fortunately, the Heinekens had bolstered my courage to the point where I was ready to follow Jman's reckless advice. Still, after drawing Dali in the loser's bracket, I was pretty sure my tournament was about to come to a quick end.

I decided that if I was gonna lose I'd rather do it because I was playing too agressively, so I went crazy from the beginning, raising most hands from the small blind, and playing back on the flop with big raises. It didn't hurt that I was catching good cards preflop & hitting a lot of flops. Then a wonderful thing happened. Having established a laggy image, I flopped tripsTK on a 334 flop. Even better, Dali flopped an overpair. I raised pot on both the flop and turn (there was a flush draw besides) and thanks to my image managed to get a call. I was learning as I went. From Jman.

This upset clearly called for celebration in the form of several more Heinekens. Now that I'd won a match, I wasn't worried about getting too drunk to think rationally. I had exceeded my own expectations and (at least on the surface) avoided ignominy, and I was now more concerned with having a good time than anything else. And I was starting to develop a new theory: more beers would actually make me play BETTER by supressing my natural cowardice.

Bolstered by a few pints of liquid courage, I kept up my agression in the 3rd round rematch against Lucky. I don't remember many hands from that match because most hands we played were won preflop or on the flop, but I do remember thinking that I was doing a much better job of holding my own this second time around. It didn't hurt that Lucky seemed to be a bit on the drowsy side. After about half an hour of back-and-forth play, I had a small 120-80 lead when I caught AsTc in the SB. I raised to 5 or 6 and Lucky flat-called. The flop was Ax3c4c and after I bet pot Lucky made a medium-sized check-raise. I thought about re-raising right there but thought that if I were re-raised I'd have to call when I was either a bit ahead or a lot behind, so I decided to just call and prolly raise/bet large on the turn unless it was real scary. The turn was the Qs, which looked pretty safe to me....until Lucky bet 18 into a 50-ish pot. I thought for a long time and almost folded, but eventually raised instead and Lacky re-raised the remainder of his chips. I called, he showed A3, and I caught a Ten on the river for my big suckout of the day.

Ok this report is getting too long so I'll skip to my big hand against Raptor. If you were there and you've made it this far, you can stop reading now. I already annoyed you about this hand.
Anyway, Raptor'd been whittling me down with super-agressive preflop play and had a healthy lead when I caught 44 in the BB. Rap made it 5 to go, which meant he probably had at least 1 card. I flat-called, which Irie has now convinced me was a mistake. My plan was to flop a set or to make a big check-raise if the flop wasn't too scary. Cards came 339. I checked, planning to CR, but Rap checked behind. Uh-oh.
The turn was a lovely, lovely 4. I decided that one mistake per hand wasn't enough, so I checked again. This time Rap bet pot. Hooray! I promptly raised pot. Rap flat-called. Hmmmmm.
River was a 9, making the board 933(4)(9). UGH. The pot was maybe 10 chips smaller than my remaining stack. I checked. Rap bet pot.

Ohwellthere'salwaysnexttime.