Last Monday, I played my first WBCOOP 2010 tournament. No Limit Holdem with about 1500 participants.
At starters I was very careful to get my chips in as I first wanted to see how everyone was playing.
Starting with 2000 chips, I earned some 1000 chips extra in about 15 hands, but then I made a mistake leaving me with 1/3 of my stack. I didn’t panic, knowing it will get better later on. A few hands later I won my all in with pocket Queens, doubling me up and back to 1000 something chips 2 hands later when my pocket aces got broken by a set of 5’s.

But still very calm I pushed myself right into the top 50 before the first break was there. The ‘key hand’ that changed everything for me in the tournament was at the time I had 7800 chips and called an all in against AKs with my (again) pocket Queens. He didn’t pair his Ace or king and I even made a set on the river. Suddenly I was in the top 100 and climbing higher and higher in the ranking.

After the first break, there were still plenty of other bloggers left playing before we reached the 153 paying places. My game was one of the best since a long while, so I was very pleased and nothing could touch me. Before heading into the 2nd break I had placed myself into the top 10 and more importantly, I was playing the table.
After winning 3 hands in a row, with KK, AK and 37s (on the Big Blind), they seemed to be a bit afraid of me. The 3 7 hand was of course very lucky as I only had to check to see the flop. And what a bad flop for my opponent, 4 3 9. He must have had an Ace or something high to make a call pre-flop. So I made a bet, the size of 2 times the BB, he called. The turn was a 2, so again a bad card for him I was thinking. But He’d called my ‘bluff’ on the flop, so I checked this time, not wanting to lose more chips. When checked also and the river made me a 2nd pair with a 7, I checked, hoping he would make a bet. And he did . He committed half his stack to the pot in the hope to scare me off, but hell no I would fold 2 pair how this hand was played. I raised him all in, hoping he would see it as a bluff. He called and mucked his cards while searching for the exit.

From then on, every time I called or re-raised, most of them folded and most of the time only the BB called me, trying to protect their BB. Example, sitting in late position, I re-raised pre-flop “ times the BB with only holding 2 9o in my hands. Only the BB called my bluff and with a AKJ flop, I was very scared he could have paired. But on the other hand, the way he played the hands before I was 99% sure he had nothing and completely missed the flop, just as I did. So I played my position and made a small bet. He re-raised me and now I was actually really scared, but something told me he was bluffing me. I could lose ½ my stack to him if I raised him all in, but because I felt strong, I re-raised him to an all in. He took whole his Time Bank seconds to think over what to do, but at the end he folded his cards, leaving me with a monster pot. I climbed up to the 3rd place with still more than 370 players left.

After the 2nd break I got really tired, it was already 1AM where I’m living and I guessed it would take at least another hour to get into the money places.
I made a deal with myself to stop playing at 1:30AM as I had to work also a few hours later and was desperate for some sleep.
So at 1:30AM with 250 players left, I clicked the ‘Sit Out next hand’ checkbox and went to bed.
I was very excited to see where I finished at the time I got up, so before everything else I checked my PokerStars account to see the result.
I was surprised to see I finished on the 54th place, winning me a $16,5 SCOOP ticket.
On the other hand I was wondering what if I played out the whole tournament? The poker I was playing was very good and I was pretty sure I could reach the final table. But also 1 mistake could cost me the tournament before even reaching the paid places.

Conclusion, sitting out paid off this time. It wasn’t fun for me to do it, especially because I was standing 3rd at that time, but it had to be done.

Now up to the next WBCOOP event.
Did you play?

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