FTOPS IV - Event #1

When I decided roughly 8 months ago to go back to work and temporarily give up playing poker full time, I told myself that this steady income would afford me the ability to play at higher stakes. Since that time though, I had been playing in the same games and at the same level. Reminded of this recently, I decided now was the time to make a conscious effort to keep this promise.

The Full Tilt Online Poker Series, or FTOPS, is Full Tilt's (an online poker site) version of the World Series of Poker. It is a series of tournaments that culminates in a main event, a main event with a 1.5 million dollar prize pool. So, after a handful of feudal attempts at qualifying via satellite, I plopped down the 216 dollar entry fee and was ready to play my first big tourny. I have played in tournaments with a bigger buy-in than 216 dollars, but only on a local level. This would be my first tourny with name professionals in it as well. Jim McManus, Huck Seed, Kristy Gazes and the great Mike Matusow would all be playing. I was not nervous, but I was excited when the cards went into the air at 9pm EST with 2,500 players all vying for a first place prize over 70 thousand dollars. By 10:45, I was on the rail. Tournaments this large require a good deal of luck, and i didn't have much. I hovered around the 3,000 chip starting amount without getting much in the way of cards. This was especially frustrating because my table was playing super-tight, and I felt like if i could have gotten some cards, I would have been able to really run over the table early on to grow my chip stack. The fatal blow came with me at around 2,800 in chips and blinds of 40-80. I looked down at AJ offsuit, a solid hand and one i was looking to use to gain some chips. One player limped in front of me and I raised it to around 300. Everyone folded back to the limper who made the call. I immediately put him on two big cards, anything from AK to QJ. The flop came a beautiful Ace, Jack, 4 with 2 clubs. This made me the top 2 pair with a backdoor nut flush draw, so I bet out slightly less than the amount of the pot, and he called. The turn brought a third club, and gave me a nut flush draw to go with my top 2 pair. I bet again and then he immediately went all in for the rest of my chips. I had a hard time putting him on two clubs, because with me holding the ace of clubs, there were few combinations of calling hands with 2 clubs, considering that I had already put 40% or so of my chips at risk and I did have a redraw to the nut flush even if he had made a flush, I made the call. The limper turned over K10 of clubs and no club came on the river to save me. I was on the rail far sooner than expected. I felt like I had been punched in the stomach.

Looking back, I still think I played it right. I had to gain some chips as the blinds were moving up and this was by far the biggest hand I had seen. The guy made what seemed a loose call considering the fact that i had played few hands all night, but that's poker. I decided to use this free time to try to qualify for event #3 at the FTOPS, so I sat down for a single table satellite and was sitting right next to Jean-Robert Belande. He is a very good pro, who has made a handful of final tables in big buy-in tournaments. I fared better in this tourny, leading most of the way, before Jean-Robert doubled through the third place guy and took a 8,000 to 3,800 chip lead heads up. He took me out when my A7 lost to his A8 after we both flopped aces. Jean-Robert played very well and deserved to win, I was upset with how my night had gone but left the table feeling like I could play with these great players. I more than held my own with Jean-Robert, a player who's game I respect greatly, that was the silver lining to my night.

After that I sat down at a Pot Limit Omaha table and played for about an hour at very small stakes. While I have been playing Hold Em for years, Omaha is a game that I have only recently started playing with an regularity. I doubled my money in that hour before calling it a night. The night did not go as I planned and I am not thousands of dollars richer, but I still feel like I can play with the very best. I'm off to try to satellite my way into the next FTOPS tourny.