THANK YOU, CARL OLSON

Carl offered me some constructive criticism in an email Monday night. I read it, thought about it, slept on it, then woke up and implemented it. In a nutshell, he told me to play more aggressively. So, today I played three events. I am no stranger to the aggressive style, as I have played that way in the past. There were times today I entered pots recklessly, but luck was on my side all day. In those three events, I cashed in the first two and won the third.

I played the $24 Full Tilt concurrent with the $20 Rebuy at PokerRoom, which both begin at 9A. I immediately rebought and started sniffing out pots to take down. In the PR game, I built a huge stack, which took me towards the final table, but ultimately one bad play kept me from getting there. I flopped the best hand, but played meekly and was outdrawn. My $60 investment returned $108, which is not a great return on over three hours work. At Full Tilt, I got into the money but went card dead right when the chips started changing owners. I finished 13th or so and made a pittance.

I felt good about my two near-misses. Where there are near-misses, there soon are hits, and it didn't take long. I entered the 8P Full Tilt $69 event and set about dominating the table. I was playing so aggressively that my name became a running gag with opponents looking to instill fear in one another. Whenever somebody showed a willingness to get all in with me, I didn't disappoint him. Either I had the best hand or I had an inferior hand that made good. I couldn't believe some of the stuff I was hitting. I had a silent promise to myself that I would keep playing A8 like it was AK. I reraised a late-position raiser from the button with A8 and when he put me all in, I called, just for the notoriety. He showed AK. I was freerolling after the board came 44JJ, then I hit an 8 on the river to knock him out of the game and allow myself a good 40 minutes of uncontested pot stealing, since nobody wanted to try to push me off a hand.

I was sitting on $17k when that size stack was huge. At the same table was another player with nearly that same amount of chips. I called his early position raise with 87c and the flop brought 9cTcKd, giving me the open-ended straight flush. He checked and I checked, but when the third guy bet, the original raiser pushed his entire stack in. I thought about giving it up since my "tournament life" was at stake, but then I realized that even if he's got a set, I still have a huge hand with 15 outs twice. I'm only in trouble if he has AKc, but even then I still have six outs. When else do you get such a nice opportunity to double an already massive stack at this stage of a tournament? I made the call. He had AK but no clubs. The turn blanked but I caught a 6 on the river to give me a monster stack.

I was merciless at the bubble. I had more than twice the chips of anyone else and I was wearing my stomping boots. Anybody who played back at me was faced with an all-in decision. I had the good fortune at the final table to have three short stacks to my left before the two players with decent stacks. I feasted off the blinds of the short stacks and used that money to play some hands out of position when I had to fade the big stacks. I didn't slow down. I just didn't get reckless. I wasn't pushing my 84, but any two face cards were raising hands. I got some all-in action when I held AQ, AK, and AA so it was smooth sailing all the way to heads-up.

Heads-up was a battle royale. We were very evenly matched. I don't get nervous at the end of tournaments like I did when I first started. I like my short-handed game, and I love playing heads-up. We were like Rock-em-Sock-em Robots, bandying the chip lead back and forth, without either of us being able to finish the other guy off. We must have been thirty minutes into heads-up action when the break arrived. I had the chip lead, but it wasn't a significant lead based on the action up to that point. He asked me if I wanted to make a deal, which I hadn't even considered. I checked the payouts. There was $1400 separating first and second place. I suggested we each take $600 and play for the extra $200, which he accepted.

A lot of railbirds chimed in at this point that they were really enjoying the match. It really was great. At one point when I was short stacked, he thought he was putting me away when I was raising as he held top and bottom pair at the flop. We got all the money in and I am sitting on top two pair. Another time when I was short, I flopped bottom two when he had top pair top kicker. He had equally stunning comebacks, and it kept evening out with no sign of the coup de grace.

We got back to work after the break, but with the deal in place the game lost it's subtlety and we were more content to make big preflop moves. I lost a heartbreaker with AKh when he was willing to try his luck with 44. On one amazing hand, I got all my money in with pocket queens, which pleased my opponent who held pocket kings. I caught a lady on the turn and that hand was pretty much the clincher. He still had a short stack but I pounded at it until it was mine and the classic battle was in the books. We fawned over one another for a few minutes with mutual respect, then I sent him $600, having cleared $3200 for myself. Now I can buy Erick Lindgren's book.

NOTE TO JEFF AARON

Don't give up on online poker. It seems my virtual friends one by one are abandoning the online game for the live game. Sure, everyone wants to play live, but don't get to thinking that online is stacked against you. It is upsetting to hear that players are using multiple accounts to enter tournaments to increase their chances of winning, but the gaming sites can root out the obvious instances of collusion or chip dumping, so the multi-accounters probably aren't engaging too much in the blatently obvious cheats. Every player at the table put up money to play, and even though I know that some of them are the same guy, or different guys in the same room, or sharing cards via IM, I still think I can beat them. Think of it this way: if you can win against players who are cheating, then just think of what good training that is for your live play, when nobody is sharing information. I will never believe that the sites themselves are stacking the deals in some way to encourage action. It only seems that way because poker is such a great game encompassing just the right amount of luck such that anything that can happen will happen while you are watching. Don't look at probability and call it something more sinister.