Saturday, May 17, 2008

Finally Had A Breakthrough

And no, that's not a psychiactrist talking, more like Mr. Bodog. Except the sound he makes is...BOOOOOOOM.



There's a bankroll doubler! My first ever true MTT takedown (yet only my 3rd biggest cash, as the others were 2nd places in bigger tournaments). Feels awesome, really.

This was Bodog's $12+1 $2k guarantee superstack, and the field barely met the guarantee. 167 runners, I believe. The hand I posted earlier (paid on quads on every street) really set me on my way.

However, the key hand in this run wasn't much later than that, when Presto was g00t, but only up to the turn:



This was long before the final table, with only about 38% of the field gone, and there's no way I put him on pocket fives, when the money went in on the turn. So yes, I finally run g00t, and catch my very own one outer, for a 3rd place chipstack about 2/5 through the tournament.

From there, there was really no looking back, and from the final four tables down to the final table, I was chipleader (or in the top 3 at worst, for a couple short bits). This is how things looked when we sat down for the final table:



I continued to hold the chip lead, through a combination of some well-timed steals, and a couple of high pocket pairs on low flops. At least, until I made a bad read (putting someone on AK on a board with unders, when they held TPTK, or something like that). After that hand, I was 3rd of three remaining, and way behind the chipleader, but thankfully, he doubled me up on KK, and I was able to knock him out a couple of hands later, getting us down to heads-up:



We pretty much went back and forth for about 20 hands, with me slowly moving up in chips, until:



BOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOM!

I'd made a pot-control bet on the flop, hammered the turn, and when my value bet on the river got raised, I knew my long-ass wait to win was finally going to be over.



Turning the nuts is fun, especially when your opponent has a can't-foldhand.



Anyway, I really do want to give props to both Clovus and SatG, both of whom played really strong games. Clovus was up near the chiplead for most of the event, and SatG made a pretty ferocious comeback from a short stack to get to heads up.

Man, it feels GREAT to finally get the MTT monkey off my back.

7 comments:

Defender said...

Hello,

My name is Mike. Congrats on your big MTT win. I enjoy your site and was hoping we could possibly link up sometime. I started my own poker blog at

http://system.squarespace.com/poker-project/

I will add your site to my 'favorite poker blog links' section.

I wish you continued success!

smokkee said...

wtg Mondo!

you actually had waaaay more than one out in the AK vs 55 hand after the turn (4 total).

there's really no better feeling than sitting down with a bunch of other donks in a tournament and coming out on top.

nice job!

Unknown said...

Nice!!!

Mondogarage said...

Yeah, I wasn't really thinking about how an A on the river would have worked...but hey, a miracle's a miracle!

lj said...

congrats!

lucko said...

Well done!

Jestocost said...

Very nice work, Mondo!