The Caribbean Poker Classic

The Caribbean Poker Classic is my favourite trip of the year.
I have been on the last three and get better each year.

This year they have changed the destination, its no longer a visit to St.Kitts, but a cruise around the Eastern Caribben, starting out from Miami.

Having never been on a cruise and looking at the state of the cruise ship (Freedom of the Seas) this was an absolute must qualify for me.

The very first qualifier was for six CPC lite packages from the 1000 players who were eligible to play in the monthly leaderboard tournaments.

The tournament had 489 players and was to be played as a sixpack format, certainly not my favourite type of event, but I wanted that seat.

Level 1 was a fairly quiet affair, but I managed to add 50% of my chips with AK against the AJ of Tere22041 in level 2 to move to 3000 and then double through Agentu when my KK beat AK and I was on 6745.

Level 5 I moved my stack above the 10k mark, taking out Kusken777 who pushed all in on a 9558 board with 66, I had A9.

The tournament continued to go in a postive format and I moved up to 17k in Level 8, when my open ended straight draw on flop became a straight and I knocked out Loveangel who had top pair.
On the same level I had a big decision to make. Holding QsQh with a board 6sAs4d3s9s. I have the 2nd nut flush. Crotchet moves all in with 8500 into 7200 pot. I make the call and he has A9, moving me up to 26k.

Level 11 arrived, along with a piece of good fortune, I raise from the button with A9 and Lukilapi the table leader reraised for the umpteenth time. This time with very valid reason, he had KK.
An ace arrived on the flop, I was up to 40k and now thoughts of the CPC started to materialise.

These were enhanced in Level 12, when Tere05011 moves all in for 34k from the small blind when blinds were 600/1200. I look down at AA and make the call. Tere turns over J6. A 6 is the first card out, but this did not improve. My stack is now 79k and have every chance.

We start to play 4 handed at this point, meaning you have to keep very busy to keep the stack up, whilst numbers reduce to go 6 handed again.

I break the 100k barrier in level 16 when OMGSUCK folds to my AQ on a 2476A board.
We are getting close now, when Ultgamb moves all in from the button for 28k, I have AK in the big blind and make the call. He has K7 and move to over 130k. Now it is simply a matter of keeping my stack up, not doing anything silly and taking one of the 6 seats from the 12 players left.

Seat 1: kingpkl (218727 in chips) - The chip leader
Seat 2: Donn001 (50136 in chips)
Seat 3: OMGSUCK (32574 in chips)
Seat 4: lammemik (67195 in chips)
Seat 5: Fingerama (62918 in chips)
Seat 6: ClintonO (129616 in chips)

Fingerama goes first moving all in on a 4c6h3h board. He has 9hTh for a flush draw. lammemik makes the call with 69 and holds on.

OMGSUCK goes next when his A9 loses to Donn001's AK. We are down to 4, the other table is down to 5. 9 players left, 6 seats! I have 139k.

Donn is next to go, moving all in with TT, Kingpkl makes the call with QJ and hits both.
We are down to three and the other table is down to 4. One more to go.

Seat 1: kingpkl (350072 in chips)
Seat 4: lammemik (84178 in chips)
Seat 6: ClintonO (126916 in chips)

Six hands later.

Thank you for participating in the tournament "MARCH LEADERBOARD 6851793", on Apr 5 2008 9:33PM GMT. Congratulations! You placed 1st and won a seat to "CPC Cruise Lite 6851751" and 2000.00 USD!

A sixth place in the $20k on the same night for another $1k and it was a great night!
Miami here we come!

ClintonO