Just kidding. I do think I'll be playing them more than I had anticipated though.

For those of you who don't know, this past week I took down the 2k WPT event at Seminole Hard Rock in Hollywood, FL for 213k (and two SICK trophies - pics below). Believe it or not, it was only my second career live tourney cash out of probably 30-40 tournaments, with the other being a 2nd place finish in a 32 player field in the EPT Madrid HU tourney this spring. This one was a different beast, playing 9 handed with 391 players. In the past, I've definitely gotten impatient and done some dumb spewy stuff in tourneys, but I thought I played some awesome, focused poker for 3 days here.

You may be asking, "Brian, you play cash games with buyins way bigger than 2k and you don't live anywhere near Florida, what the hell are you doing playing this tourney?" Well, I was at a bar back in my hometown of Hanover Township, PA 2 Wednesdays ago and met up with some friends whom I hadn't seen in a while. One says to me, "we're going to Key West Friday-Thursday, you should come!" Uh, yeah I should! The next day I booked a flight for Monday (had stuff to do Saturday and Sunday) and headed down there for a week of fun (I have another couple friends living in Florida whom I planned on spending time with after the first two left. After already booking the trip, it came to my attention that this tournament was happening not so far away, so I thought to myself, 'Maybe I'll play, we'll see how the week is going.' I had a blast in Key West (and got some great pics - check my Twitter feed @brianchastings) but after 3 nights of drinking too much and getting sunburned too much, I decided that I had to play this tourney so I didn't feel like a waste. Onto the tourney.....

I went out in Key West the night before the tourney but cooled it on the drinking some, woke up at 8:15am, and made the 3.5-4 hour drive. I got to the Hard Rock a bit before 1pm, late regged, and was on my way. I lucked out a bit early although I'm happy with my line:

1. 150/300/25, I have 35-40k and open CO with AKo to 700, button (middle-aged, seemed not great but not a nit, 16.5k) makes it 1800, I make it 4400, he calls. Flop JT5r, I bet 3k, he makes it 7 or 8, I shove, he has AJo, I turn a Q. "Lucky" but I certainly like my line a lot more than his.

I had a few other hands where I got it in ahead or flipping and overall chipped up a bit to 77k when the following hand happened:

2. 200/400/50, I raise 75dd in the HJ to 1025, SB (mid-late 20s, seems like thinking TAG) 3bets to 2800 with a 36-37k stack, I call. Flop 663r with 1 diamond, check check. Turn A completing rainbow, he bets 3500 I call. River 8o, he leads 7k with 23k behind, I shove, he tanks for 8 minutes and folds AK face up, I show, he is very sad.

My thought process - on the turn I think he either has an ace or air and is mostly gonna c/f the air on the river. On the river, I thought his bet sizing looked very valueish and put him on a big ace. More importantly, I thought that he'd expect me to think this. I also thought that he was smart enough to realize that I'm never doing this with AQ/AJ here. Finally, I felt like he'd think it's pretty hard for me to show up with a bluff here given the board - only missed draws are 54 and my hand, otherwise I'd have to be turning A5s or 77 or something into a bluff, which is unlikely. I don't hate his fold with AK, maybe I'm crazy.....

Anyway, I made it to day 2 with about 165k which was 15th/about 100 if I recall correctly. I idiotically went out late with some high school buddies whom I hadn't seen in a while and live in Florida now and showed up 25 minutes late for day 2 (was awake 3 hours before start though - #idiot) but still had well over 100bb when I got there. I was fortunate to have AA in a stupidly amazing spot:

3. I raise UTG to 3500 at 8k/16k with 170k, UTG+1 calls, UTG+2 who's been out all night and 4 Coronas deep makes it 7200, button flats, BB shoves for 35k (yes, this actually happened....), I flat, others fold (UTG+2 folded AK, button who covered me folded QQ....bah nice fold sir), BB has JJ, I flop an ace. Soon after I busted UTG+2 from the previous hand with TT vs 55 to pick up another 40k or so. I got moved soon after and just played some smallball for a while, including some 3betting of guy to my right. Then the following hand occurs:

4. Guy to my right makes it 10.5k at 2k/4k/500 UTG+1 with about 100-110k to start the hand, I make it 26k with TT, he flats. Flop T32r, he checks I bet 20k he shoves with KJ.

I had almost 400k at this point, played through the money bubble pretty uneventfully, and then got moved again, then after winning a few big ones,

5. I think level is 2.5k/5k/500 but unsure. I raise around 2.2x UTG with 33, 2 calls including middle aged guy in BB who starts with ~250k. Flop A53r, I bet half pot or so, BB is only caller. Turn 2, I bet 70k with him having around 200 left. He shoves with AT and I fade the 4 for the chop.

I then won a big "flip" with 99 vs AQ for a 600k pot that would have set me back to around 250k if I had lost. I say "flip" because a third player mucked AQ preflop, although he would have hit a 4 card flush....lucky me. I had some ups and downs the rest of the day, reaching 1.3m before running QQ into KK for a bunch and falling to 800k, then clawing back to 1.2m by day's end.

I entered day 3 2nd with 16 left and made damn sure I didn't miss hands this time. I lost some small ones to fall a hair below 1m, then:

6. I raise AhAd to 35k at 8/16/2, middle aged Latin American guy who covers by 200k or so makes it 88k on the button, I 4bet to 215k, he calls. Flop a frightening KJ5sss, I nonetheless bet 200k and call a jam, he somehow has AK no spade (run better Stinger).

Same guy chips up to about 700k, then we get it in on a T74ss flop with my Q7ss vs his 88, and I spike a Q on the turn to advance to about 2.3m (had lost a little). Soon after, we consolidate to a 10 handed final table. Shockingly (sarcasm), 10 handed played very nitty and little happened for a while. It'd be really awesome if tourneys stopped making people play 10 handed, is anyone actually in favor of it? I was pretty carddead for a while and put on the brakes a bit while the field went from 10 to 5. Then, I played this hand:

7. 2m to start hand, 25/50/5k. Darryll Fish (The_D_Fish, strong player) makes it 125k in CO, I call BTN with QTdd. Flop A92hhd, he leads for 150k and I float. Turn 8h, he checks I bet 350k into 650, he calls. River Qh, he checks, I bet 600k into 1.35m, he tanks a few minutes and folds, phewwww. No show this time although I told him later. A bit involved to go though my thought process here but if there's interest I'd be glad to do it later. Needless to say this was huge for me, I'm down to 7-800k or about 15bb if he calls.

I lost some small ones and had 1.9m at dinner, while another player busted and we were down to 4. We came back playing 30/60/10k and the very first hand I got in AK vs 77 for my tourney life (above AA vs AK hand was only other time I had been at risk to this point), and was fortunate to win the race. So now I had 4m and was either leading or close, then the very next hand:

8. Stacks: CO (Mike, solid young tourney reg) - 1.2m, SB (Darryll) - 2.6m, BB (me) - 4m

Action: CO makes it 120k, SB 3bets to 305k, I make it 625k with AKo, CO folds (said later he had JJ), SB jams for 2m more with AJs, I call and bust him. I really don't like CO's fold here because it's a pretty sweet spot for me to be light given stacks vs SB, but I'm certainly no expert. I hit a king and would have beat JJ but still certainly lucked out a bit here to win more chips and bust a very tough adversary.

After that hand I had nearly 7m of the 11.7m in play and felt very in control. After running over them a bit I busted the shortstack with 44 vs A5. I had an almost 3-1 lead to start heads up. Then, on the very first hand:

9. Still 30/60/10, he makes it 130k on BTN, I peel 52cc. Flop AJ2cc, I check he bets 150k I make it 425 he shoves I call he has 64cc. The turn bricks and I'm feeling good about my chances, but an offsuit 6 hits the river, not so easy after all...

He led with about 6.3m chips to my 5.4, then shortly after:

10. 35/70/10, I make it 140 on the button with 88, he calls. Flop T85r, he leads 150, I make it 425, he calls. Turn 4 putting a backdoor flush draw out, he checks, I bet 850k with 4m behind, he ships, I snap, he has T3 and is dead.

I had a commanding lead at this point. After some open shoving with no calls I shoved A9 on the button and ran into AJ and lost, but still had about a 9.7m to 2m lead. Then,

11. I minraise button with J3cc, he calls. Flop AT2cc, he leads 150k, I raise to 375k, he shoves, I call, he has 74cc, J hi holds for the win!

I'm not gonna lie, winning a live tourney was a pretty sweet feeling. Not on the order of what I felt after the Isildur win, but still pretty freaking nice. Especially after having a lot of struggles in live tourneys in the past, granted over a small sample size (my 2nd cash out of probably around 35-40 live MTTs, still in the red in them for sure), winning this one and really just feeling like all the stars aligned and that I combined strong play with timely luck in the way that seems necessary to win one of these things felt really cool to me. Also, I have to give credit to the WPT - this tourney had one of the best structures of any that I can remember. I'm not sure the average stack dipped below 50bb at any point. The moves between blind levels were smooth, playing 9 handed (except at exactly 10) was great, and everything flowed. Well done guys.

I think my next live tourney stops will be the EPT London and WSOPE in Cannes in October, as I'm moving to Vancouver next week and would like to get settled in and into a routine a bit. I hope the hand postings were informative, I'd be happy to discuss them here or via PM. Also, I just got my new Macbook Pro and am going to get Camtasia set up and start pumping out some videos. I'm starting with a leakfinder of a HU 5/10 PLO match and a theory video "Differences between Online and Live PLO" but after that I'm unsure, so if you have any video ideas please shoot them my way.

-Brian