After a gruelling two weeks of poker in Manila, flew straight to Ho Chi Minh for even more back to back poker. First it was the WPT followed by APT Vietnam. It was 3 weeks full of ups and downs, with mostly downs but a great finish. It was a rough time for me on my confidence and morale, big hits on my bankroll as well but I think I found the turning point of my short poker career. In this 3 weeks I felt that I improved my game vastly as well! So maybe this is the beginning to great things to come.
First event I got into the final table. With everyone on even stacks, I chose a bad spot to bluff and got called by aces and first one out of the final table. Quite upset as I felt that (and some players on the final table commented) that I was one of the stronger players left. Had a rough main event so I jumped into the high rollers. Was struggling all the way until end of day 1 I managed to spin 9bbs into a 50bb stack. On the bubble I was probably 10th shortest stack but I manage to throw away a certain cash and maybe even a deep run. I won a big session on the cash game which soften the blow a little bit but I was so tilted for more than a week. It sent me on a downward spiral of bad decisions after the next, including double bullets in the Super High Rollers that I didn't have much edge in. I knew only about top 6 was going to cash that one and I could count at least 7 players I was sure was better than I.
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WPT High Roller stack. Should have at least cashed |
However in the turn of events, I sat beside many great players like Danny Tang, Victor Chong, Kunal Patni, Pete Chen, etc. and I learned a lot from them. Namely Danny who gave me a few simple comments that I took to heart and applied immediately. If I start to crush the FTs you guys know who to blame. :p
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Cash game run good |
I fired 4 bullets in the APT main event (very unlike me) because I felt I was playing better and better but just getting unlucky. One hand for example I defended my big blind with A4o in a 4-way pot. Flop was A45. I checked raised and got jammed into by A9. River 9. But the 4th bullet was uneventful, I just chipped up slowly picking up small pots here and there, but played disciplined without spewing any chips unnecessarily. I managed to go reasonably deep but had a bad beat jamming 16bbs on the small blind with QT into big blind's JT only for him to catch the Jack on the turn. But it ended up being a blessing in disguise when I quickly used my prize money to buy into the highrollers' event where I ran super hot and finished 3rd.
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Monster tower |
Several key hands that got me to 3rd.
AA vs 99 (Victor Chong)
77 hit set vs monster draw (Dylan Wilkerson)
AA flop set vs double belly (unknown Vietnamese)
Lost QQ vs A9, KK vs AQ but still managed to keep a decent stack.
99 flop set vs KK (Pete Chen)
A9 over bet river on a 9QQ99 board and got jammed into (Linh Tran)
AA flop quads (unknown Vietnamese)
KJ vs AQ (Japanese player)
A6 vs AK (Vietnamese player)
AJ vs JT (Duong Vi Khoa)
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Half a billion! |
Sorry to those I bad beat. Next tournament APL Vietnam, so I have a whole month for studying and some cash game grinding. Although I barely turned a profit, but I did pledge 10% to charity so I am going to keep to my word. If you have any charities to suggest please drop me a message.