$5K Shootout

360 entries roughly, on 36 tables. You win your table you are in the money, and play 6 handed the next day. There is a bad player in seat 1. A very good player (Adam Levy) in seat 3, me in 4, and the rest of the table is at least competent if not very good. They are all internet players I think. Oh, and Phil Ivey sits down in the 2 seat. At least I have position on him.

Table 16: Phil Ivey (2), Adam "Roothlus" Levy (3), Amit "Amak316" Makhija (8), David "dpeters18" Peters (9), Brian "tsarrast" Rast (10)

We start with 10,000 chips which seems like a lot except the blinds are 100-200 and the second level is 150-300/25, so it goes up quick. The table is pretty tight, except for Ivey who wins a lot of small pots just by being in them. I pick up KQs and call a raise and its 3 players to the flop of K-8-5 rainbow. The raiser bets out 1200, I make it 3200 and both fold. Nice.

The 1 seat limps from the cutoff, Ivey limps, SB completes, and I check with 34o. Flop comes 2-5-8. SB checks, I check (hoping Ivey will bet) CO checks, Ivey bets 600, I call. Turn is another 2. Check-check. River is a blank, I bet out 1200, and I bluff out the best poker player in the world with 4-high.

Ivey then doubles up, knocking out seat 1 who slowplays AA and Ivey pushes the flop with a flush draw and gets there. Ivey then goes out when he flops top two and all the money goes in on the flop and the villain has a flush draw and gets there. Poker.

I chip up to about 13000 and then make the only real mistake of the day. I'm in the SB. A guy min-raises to 400, the button makes it 1800 and I call, set-mining, with pocket 9's. Unfortunately the min-raiser now pushes and we both fold. I still am pretty aggro though and win many pots without confrontation. I wake up with JJ in the big blind and 3-bet a raiser who folds. I open raise with AA and the big blind looks like he is itching to repop me but he doesn't. Sigh.

At the far end of the table there is a euro-player who has gotten short and has started to open-push. He's done this about 4 times-- at one point he gets called and shows Q8s and manages to double up. So when he open pushes again and I look down at AQ on the button I think I'm probably way ahead of his range and this is a good time to knock out a player and get some chips. I call off 3800 and he shows pocket 4's and I miss. Damn it.

After the break I find myself with less than 6000 chips and blinds at 200-400/50. Not good, but a healthy stack to resteal with. So I wait for an opportunity. It comes when there is a raise to 1000 from the Adam "Roothlus" Levy in the cutoff and I push on the button with JTs. He calls with 22. The flop comes Q-9-x and now I have 14 outs twice to double up. For you non-poker people this means I need any King, Eight, Jack or Ten. Needless to say I brick out and its good game me. fwiw, Roothles went on to win the table...