$137,000 and Rakeback Info!  [12.11.2005]
$200+15 Sunday tournament on Stars. 3423 entrants. 1st place. $136,920. Today was a good day.

This is the most money I�ve ever won in a single tournament / day, just edging out my $110k finish I had a month and a half ago. This is by far the most money I�ve ever won for a 1st place finish, and damn, it feels good. After the $600+40, I was a bit disappointed, because I felt like I messed up on the final hand. This time I am extremely happy with my play.

Hand 1 <- click there (text isn�t showing up)

In this hand I made a standard preflop raise, and a good, tricky, aggressive player called in the big blind. I missed the flop and thought about going all-in. Chances are that he missed the flop too, but I thought there was more value in checking. It was certainly a close decision, and vs. most players I just move all-in there.

On the turn, my opponent over bet the pot and moved all-in. Now ace high isn�t a strong hand. I can only beat a bluff there. The thing is, I thought there was a great chance he was bluffing. When I make a call like that, I�m not going to be right all the time. Sometimes he�ll show KK or even 87s and I�ll be out of the tournament, but the pot was big enough that I thought I would be ahead a large enough percent of the time to make the call correct. Gibralter is a good player, and I would never think of making this call vs. less tricky opponents.

Hand 2 <- click there (text isn�t showing up)

This was the final hand of the tournament. Kometen1 was playing well heads up, and I knew he was a thinking player. He was raising a lot preflop, and I hadn�t reraised once yet. I made this reraise knowing that I would take it down preflop often enough to make it profitable. In this situation, he unfortunately called. On the flop I made a standard continuation bet, and he raised it all-in. Again, this was a spot where I only beat a bluff (or a semi bluff). I figured the most likely hand he had was an underpair like 77 or 88, or two overcards like he had. If he had AA or KK, he would probably reraise preflop. If he hit trip 9�s, he would probably play it slower postflop. The two hands that worried me the most were JJ and QQ, but I made the call thinking that it was much more likely that I was ahead, and I was right.

Another way to look at the hand is that I was representing a big pair preflop, but he didn�t believe me. He made his stand on the flop, and he was right, I didn�t have a big pair preflop. However, I managed to hit a pair on the flop, and that was enough to beat his rebluff.

Both of these calls were tough calls, and I really don�t want my readers to think that these calls should be standard. In both spots I was up against tricky players, and all signs pointed to them being likely enough to be bluffing that a call was profitable.

Ok, now for rakeback.info.

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