If At First You Don't Succeed...

At long last, I won my Series seat tonight in a double shootout at Stars. In my first table, I had a ridiculously long heads up battle with "t_soprano," who plays in the biggest hold em games on Stars and is a tournament regular. The guy plays good. But I played good too. Usually I don't love playing heads up, but this was a lot of fun. I had him all-in three or four times when I had the best hand and he survived. Once I was sure I had him when he raised the button and I jammed with QQ, but he had KK and survived again. He had me all-in once with K6 vs my 77 and I survived. The whole table took two hours and I would guess that at least 45 minutes of that was heads up. Often when I limped on the button, he would shove in. I kept saying out loud, to myself, that I was going to limp with a big hand one of these times. Then I got AA when I had him covered by a little, limped, he jammed with K8s, and it was over.

I won a big pot early at the final table with KJ in the BB. Two people limped, the SB called, and I checked. The flop was AQT. Checked to the first limper who bet the pot, the second limper called, and I called. Turn a 9, checked to the first limper who bet 220, second limper called, I made it 620 and they both folded. In hindsight I wish I had flat-called the turn and lead out on the river. The turn brought a second spade though, so my play can't have been that bad. I hit a real dry patch and had less than 1000 chips left (13500 in play) when we got four-handed. I did a lot of stealing and chipped up to about 2800 with blinds of 75-150 when, three-handed now, the button folded, and the SB made it 450. I jammed with JJ and he called me pretty quickly with KTs. If I recall, he started the hand with about 5500. There's no reason for him to call here, even if I have been aggressive. This is the power of playing aggressively. I won the hand and took over the chip lead.

We went back and forth for a while with me around 6500 and both of my opponents around 3500. Then the same guy from the previous hand made it 600 on the button (100-200 now) and I moved in from the SB with A9. He called almost 3000 more with K6o and turned a 6. The very next hand I found AQ on the button, raised, and defended when the SB moved in. He had 44 and I turned an ace to bust him. We started heads up and Mr. K6 had a small lead on me. I don't remember too many hands from the heads up play. The one where I really took over control saw him limp on the button with K2 and me check with J7s. The flop was KT7, I checked, he bet, I raised, and he just called me. The turn was a 7, I checked, he bet about half my stack and I decided to just call. I jammed after the blank river and he called. After that he had about 2000 left. He limped on the button with A7o a few hands later, I flopped two pair with my T3o, and that was that.

Funny things:

- T3o is my buddy Mike's signature hand. He plays it like it's two aces every time and often takes down big pots with it.

- Apropos of nothing, Matt told me I was going to win a seat today, a few hours before I played this thing.

Total investment in WSOP satellites: $6470
Cash won in those satellites: $1320
Actual total paid for seat: $5150

Thanks to everyone who told me to keep my head up while I was pouring money into these satellites with no results to show. I appreciate it. See you all in Vegas in a few months.