The £15k Champion!

Tired but triumphant this morning! After 4 hours and 49 minutes of playing poker last night, I was crowned the £15k champion for the 3rd time.

For the 3rd time in 8 months I have woken up on a Wednesday morning as the £15k champion and with over £4k as the first prize. What is it about Tuesdays?!

At this point I have to thank my 5 a side football team for letting me down last night, so that I had to cancel the game. If we had played that I would have missed out on this momentus occasion. In fact me not playing on Tuesdays for the last 10 weeks, might be one of the reasons for my lack of success! Who Knows!

It was my 13th appearance at the final table of the event. 3 wins from 13 is not a bad ratio. Also I have won every heads up I have played at the final table of the 15k.

I must say though it was not looking likely. I had made a promising start, I flopped a straight and someone bet all into me, which was very nice! I was up to 14k in the small blind and AA appears, usually a sign of joy, but I was on a zero from 5 ratio, so was a little cautious.

The button 'holistic' moves all in for 6k! What to do! Its an obvious call but I was still lacking confidence. He turns over J8, surely not this time. The second card of the flop is a Jack, the turn comes an 8. Sick! 0/6. (I did get my revenge on this guy when my set of 5s beat his A9 and knocked him out in 11th)

I recovered and moved up to 35k. AA appears for the 2nd time and the 7th time this week. (0/6 so far - always all in preflop) Early position raises, I reraise and 'garrdan' moves all in for 27k. Again I have to call, I am up against KK. The flop was not a problem, but the turn bought one of the two remaining Kings and I am crippled! Sick 0/7. 7 successives defeats all in preflop with AA. I tried to calculate the odds of losing 7 consecutive all in pre flops against one player with AA and my calculator broke!

Feeling devasted and ready to go all in with any two cards, with only 7.8k left, my next two cards bring AA for the 3rd time in the tournament. Surely, surely it wont happen again. This time I was all in againt A9 and despite a 9 coming, my Aces held up at last. I doubled through again with a set of 5s and then again with JJ against 99.

At the final four, I was short stacked again with 60k. The chip leader then knocked out the 3rd place player (who managed to throw away his chip lead to out, in two crazy moments!)
The situation was LayzerCat 330k, garrdan 138k and me 60k. The jumps in prize money are massive at this point. £4.2k for 1st, £2.7k for 2nd and £1.5k for 3rd. I decided to get very aggressive, as I expected I would be picked on.

I managed to get my stack up to 120k without ever getting to a showdown.
I got my revenge on garrdan and went into the showdown behind, but probably in the best position of my 3 heads up finals of the £15k. I had 200k, Layzercat 328k. I doubled throw early when my A2 clubs found two more clubs on the flop, I reraised all in and hit my additional club on the turn. He had matched a Queen on the flop.

I then threw away my chip lead when moving in with 44 on 57Q board, he called with 73 and leveled the chip count.
I moved back into a 3 to 1 lead when the board came Q89J, I had reraised and he had to throw them away. No I did not have the Ten.

The final moment of glory came when holding 79. The board came 68Q. I got to see the flop and turn very cheaply. The river came a 5 and he kindly went all in with his last 65k in chips and I happily called and won the tournament! My third £15k!

I was very happy with this win, especially as I had lost with Aces twice (have I mentioned that yet! lol!) at key moments of the game. I was particularly pleased at the way that I recovered from such a short stack, as well as the way I moved up and down the gears. Usually when I go into power poker, I forget to slow down, but last night I managed to do that.

That you to everyone who was watching and that have sent me well played messages.

It has given my game a much needed confidence boost, at a time where I was starting to question my game.

Some of the real stars of crypto have been winning big over the last couple of months. I was getting concerned that because I do not play this game full time and then only evenings when I can and I was being left behind.
This however is hopefully the catalyst to more success and now I go into the EPT 10 seater qualifier on Sunday in confident mood of securing my seat in the final in Barcelona.

I will hopefully be defending my title tonight!
ClintonO