O-Poker

Well, I was able to play in WCOOP Event #1 - $530 NL tourney along with 3,061 other players. I entered with the W$ that I had left plus a pretty good run in some heads-up sngs. 6+ hours later, I finished 212th (ahead of 2,850 others) for $1,071.70. I was disappointed considering my start, but am happy with finishing in the money (324 places paid). I didn't see many cards for the first hour but built up a few chips. I managed to work my way into the top 20 during the 3rd hour (with about 19k in chips) when I flopped a flush with KQc and got a guy to put all his chips in with the Ac and luckily he didn't catch. The next few hours, I saw AK once and had to lay it down to a huge raise on the flop (that I didn't hit) from a really, really tight player. I lost with 1010 to A8o with an ace on the river for a big hit. I picked up the blinds with QQ once. Other than that, the best hand I saw was A10s for 2 hours.

As we got close to the bubble, I went completely card dead and only managed to steal a few blinds to keep my stack out of danger. First hand after the bubble burst and everyone was guaranteed at least $700, I get AK in the cutoff and move all-in. I am called by QQ in the SB and when an Ace comes on the turn, I double up to $17k. I didn't get any cards and the big stacks were pushing. I get blinded down to around 9k with 800/1600 blinds and get A9 in the cutoff. I push all-in and the SB goes all-in behind me with AK - and that's all she wrote. 212th for $1k - gg me.

So the WCOOP is off the a pretty good start for me. I am happy that I cashed in Event #1 for a good profit (although would have liked to have done better). Next event that I will be able to play is Event #5, the NL rebuy event. Hopefully, I can finish a lot higher in that event.