Imprudence relies on luck, prudence on method. That gives prudence less edge than it expects.
–Mason Cooley
I often hear that winning in tournament poker requires a dose of luck, so provided you play good poker in enough tournaments, you’ll make it deep and win from time to time. Like this guy.
I had more than my share of good luck on Sunday in the PokerStars 2nd Annual World Blogger Championship of Online Poker.
Lucky Break #1
I was seated at a table where 6 of the 9 players were sitting out and never showed up to play. Not only did that mean all the blinds one could steal, but also a lot of short-handed pressure play. Once I knocked out the player to my left (AQ vs AT, A high flop), it was heads-up play with a 2:1 chip advantage and a positional advantage (seat 9 vs 6).
Lucky Break #2
While heads-up with seat 6, I called a min-raise with a suited Q. The flop came K high, all in my suit. Check, check. The turn put a non-threatening card on the board. Another check from the raiser and I put out a normal sized bet. He called. The river pairs the board and seat 6 wakes up with a sizable bet. I raised a few times the size of his bet and he re-raised. I thought about it, discounted the possibility of the boat or the higher flush, and put him all in. He had a suited J for the 3rd nut flush and I was sitting on a lot of chips.
Lucky Break #3
At level 13, with blinds/antes at 1000/2000/100, I found myself getting short (m of 5.6). I steal-raised to 4xBB from the button with a suited K, but laid it down to an all-in re-steal. In desperate shape, I re-raised the short stack’s all-in with a pair of sixes. Unfortunately, Columbo quickly called all-in with his pair of queens. The short stack had AK and the flop came down Ah As 2s, leaving me with 2 outs twice or running spades to win. Then the beat: a 6h on the turn. This was probably not as bad as the beat I handed out last December, but it was pretty bad. I apologized in the PokerStars chat and on IRC, but I’m not sure if anyone bought it. With that CJ-esque suckout, my stack was back in the playable range.
The Rest
Honestly I don’t remember the rest too well. I do remember not wanting to win a Letterman jacket. I’ve got one of those. 
The iPod mini would have been nice, and I would have preferred it over the $215 seat in the Sunday Million or even the $370 seat in the WSOP Satellite. Once it got down to the 10th place bubble, I took a few opportunities to steal some blinds/antes, but probably not as many as I should have.
At the final table, I made some bold moves, knowing that 9th place would pay just as well as 2nd, and bold moves were needed to come in 1st. Unfortunately, trying to push someone off a hand by re-raising all-in in response to his re-raise of your raise doesn’t always work. Especially if you have 99 and he has a pair of kings. Strangely enough, I survived that hand with a few chips, survived the next with a crazy 7 high straight, and finally went out in 6th place.
Once again, a big thank you to all the people who cheered me on and gave me encouragement. These things are always more fun with friends watching.
