1.5/409

The nightly $150 5PM event at Full Tilt. I got $15k in chips early and then the cards dried up for two hours. I stayed patient, figuring I would be content to hold onto my stack for when the antes arrive rather than contesting every $300 pot in the meanwhile. I stayed in the $13-15k zone for the entire remainder of the pre-ante period. When the antes arrived, I was still card dead and patiently waited until I got bled down to about $6k. There were a few desperation moves but then the cards came back and boom, boom, boom, I've got a ton of chips and I'm glad I waited.

The big hand for me was when I had about $50k and called a $6k raise with AJ. The big blind chip leader put the all-in squeeze on us but I decided to gamble. I was up against tens and I turned a jack to take a big pot heading into the fourth hour. I now had final table chips and I did nothing to endanger them. The first hand at the FT, I got KK on the BB and merely called a raise. I figured I didn't want the other guy to fold preflop so I would slowplay and get it in on the flop so long as no ace comes. The flop came all babies - 443 and I check-raised him. He figured his jacks were good and went with them, shipping about $130k my way for the dominating chip lead. Not long after, I picked up AA and busted a guy when I trapped him into making a squeeze play with A2.

It got down to three-way and I had over half the chips. One guy asked for a chop but I figured neither of my opponents wanted to finish second, so I was in a nice position with no reason to concede. The dude who wanted to chop finished 3rd and I went into heads-up with a 2:1 chip advantage. I was done getting cards at this point and he was playing well and managed to almost catch up. Once we were near even, I asked if he wanted a straight chop since the difference between first and second was $7k. He was amenable and we went all in on the next hand where his KJ beat my K8. He sent me $3k but I notified support that I felt the deal was an even chop and I'm missing nearly $500. Hopefully that will turn up. As it stands, my take is about $14,400, which oh-so-nearly gets me within shouting distance of even for the year. Yes, it was a horrible first five months. I wasn't even going to play at all this summer, but I'm glad I have as I've now won three events.