I Made The Main Event Final Table!

Ok, so it wasn’t “The Main Event”, it was the Orleans Summer Series $800. But still, I managed to finish 5th out of 1650 runners for $35,000… still worth bragging about!

The last few months I’ve been slacking as a Newsletter Writer. But I’ve been working harder than ever as a player and coach. My Vegas Summer recap:

Most of you know me as a No Limit pro, but during the WSOP I exclusively play Omaha High/Lo. It’s my favourite game, and the series is the place I can play live. So every day I take advantage in a tournament or cash game.

And I performed very well! I cashed both $1500 WSOP events I played, including finishing 39th out of 1500 in BigO. All the while I was fielding questions from my students:

“How can I make deeper runs, make more final tables, and get the big win”

Over and over I was giving the same advice. Encouraging my students to use their analytical skill and instincts to find more spots to apply aggression. More bluffs! More allins!

I repeated this so often, eventually I was sick of hearing myself.

This got me thinking… Was there a way I could show (not just tell) my students how aggression could benefit them? What if I put my money where my coaching mouth was? I decided to enter one NL tournament, my first of the summer, walk the walk, and try something I had never done before.

I committed to writing down every hand I played. Good or bad, I would show every decision I faced. This took my accountability to a whole new level, and would allow my students the opportunity to compare their decision making to my own.

The result? Better than I ever could have hoped for.

I registered for the Saturday night flight around 8pm, the last level of registration. 1600 people had entered before me, so $800 only bought me a starting stack of 13BB. Many had already busted so basically everyone left had a bigger stack than me. Only 192 would come back for the Sunday Final, so if I wanted a chance I knew I’d have to kick it into high gear and maximize every spot.

First hand the CO raised, I look down at A6o in the BB. Could I be sure this was the best hand? No, of course not. But I would expect the CO to be opening up alot worse, and if I could use my stack to get folds from K9 or JT… wasn’t the whole point of this exercise to demonstrate the power of aggression?

I jammed allin and he folded.

Two hands later I was the button with AT. A player limped in late. Again I jammed it in. Everyone folded.

Ten minutes later we were dealt the last hand of the registration period. I announced to my table I would try to double up or bust (and rebuy if necessary). The same player limped in. My stack was already big enough that an allin here would be excessive, but I knew I couldn’t take my foot off the gas. I raised 2.3BB with A8o, the original limper called, and luckily the flop came out 8 high…

I’m going to take a break here. Thank you to everyone who has stuck with me this far. Stay tuned for next week when I’ll finish the story of this hand and talk more about the emotional experience of being in Vegas for 6 weeks. I’ll also be offering anyone interested access to my complete history of this tournament. Every hand I played from the start, up until the final 3 tables (they made me put away my phone and stop!).

See you next week!

Peter