The last couple days I’ve completely zoned into online… honestly its been pretty sick, I’ve probably crammed in 30 hours of playing over the last two days and still managed time to get to the gym and slip a few hours of sleep in there. My binge started off great winning the Poker Stars $55 rebuy tournament. During this tournament I was very concentrated, playing Jay Pizzo poker, poker I wish I could play in every tournament I play in. Was making great reads, huge lay downs and saving bets. Although I was playing great I went to the final table short stacked. Was able to get it all in with AK vs. A10 and doubled up right away. There was a lot of action at this table; people were throwing their chips around. A very crucial hand happened when the chip leader raised on the button and I had pocket 9’s in the big blind. I decided just to call being able to fold the hand if big cards fell on the flop. To my liking I received a dream flop of A,A,9 flopping a full house. The original raiser was a very strong player and came out betting right away, making me believe he’s capable of betting trip aces into me in this spot. I cold called the flop looking to put him all in on the turn, but on the turn he checked… So I bet out an over sized bet trying to look weak and wanted to win the pot right there. He calls might bet instantly. The thought did cross my mind that he possibly flopped a full house also with A,9 or possibly filled up on the turn but I could really care less at this point… all the power to him if he did, I was going all the way with this hand especially this late in the tournament. The river bring a useless card and he checks to me right away, I move all in for my remaining chips and he calls instantly showing A,3 giving him trip aces and I’m shipped this huge pot. At this point there are 4 players remaining and I have a slight chip lead. One of the players in the chat box asks if any of the remaining players are interested in making a deal for the remaining prize pool. For those who don’t play poker this is very common practice when there are few players remaining in a tournament. The blinds get so high sometimes and there’s so much gambling at this point anyone is capable of winning. In this case I had a slight chip lead, so I would receive slightly more money then the other players… I gladly accepted the deal because like I just mentioned the blinds were so high is was a crap shoot at this point. So I managed to walk away with a nice chunk of change of $5,500.

After playing online non-stop I decided I’d play a small tournament at The Unit.. it was a $60 buy-in with a couple tables. The tournament didn’t have a very strong field, so I was looking to take advantage of the weak spots. At my opening table I was able to get involved in quite a few hands without getting played back at. My chip stack was going up and down like a roller coaster, at one point I was down to 400 in chips from the starting 2500. I managed to win a few pots then grabbed a big one where I flopped bottom two pair from the big blind and doubled up giving me a pretty average stack going into the final table. The very first hand was kind of a weird one. One of the stronger players at the table was sitting to my right and opened up for a raise, I glanced down at my cards and called with A,10 (ace of clubs)… Two, who also made the final table was sitting to my left, moves all-in trying to steal the pot. At this point I thought Two was pretty weak, but at the same time I thought to move all-in against a early raise and a call (squeeze play), made me think he had to have something decent. It gets folded back to the original raiser and he thinks for a while and decides to call, I fold my hand knowing I had to be dominated. Original raiser flips over A,Q and Two flips over A,10 offsuit.. I was shocked why he would of made that move in that spot with such a mediocre hand like A,10 and Two replied by saying he didn’t know there was a raise! He thought we both just limped and tried to steal.. anyways the flop comes with 3 clubs and the turn brings another club (Would have given me the NUT FLUSH!).. I was pretty pissed off b/c if Two would have seen the raise he would have played the hand differently and I would have scooped a huge pot. So right off the bat I was pretty spun knowing I should be chip leader at this point. I re-grouped and played pretty solid throughout the final table, pushing when I needed to and made some big lay downs. We were down to 5 players (top 3 pay) when a gross beat happened to me. I’m in the BB (big blind) and the button limps in.. now the small blind makes a Huge raise all-in, I look down and happily see pocket kings. I make the call and the small blind says out ‘Oh shit’ as he flips over one 3 and says it was his best card. The rest of the table laughs when he flips over a 2 of spades to go with it. One of the remaining players at the table mentioned how she folded a 3 leaving only two 3’s left in the deck. It’s pretty obvious what happen now; the flop is 7,5,3.. turn 3! I lose the pot and once again I’m short stack. Now I go on a pretty good rush moving all-in numerous times picking up the blinds and was also able to felt(knock-out) a player in the process. We were down to 3 handed and I won a race situation and knocked out the 3rd guy. We were down to heads-up in the tournament and we both had pretty equal chip stacks, so for my second tourney in a row we decided to chop it. Just like the other tournament, the blinds got really high at this point and any hand could have ended it.

So all and all I had a really successful couple days making $6,000+.


I headed home to my parents place in Guelph this past weekend to see the family and some of the boys. Its reading week so a bunch of people are home in Guelph. I had a pretty relaxing time being able to get some good meals in at home and just did some well needed relaxing without poker. People laugh when I say that, how I need a vacation from poker but its 100%. true. When you play all the time it gets very exhausting and stressful, going home gives me time to just chill and have no worries on my mind. I also went out with a bunch of the boys for some drinks and had a good time. I don’t really remember much of the night having 1 too many drinks but it was fun from what I do remember.

I’m going to take another couple days off from playing and start fresh on March 1st. February was a decent month but not even close to as good as my January.. So I want to start March off with a clear mind and zoned in to playing more consistent. That was my biggest problem in February after looking back. I would play great for one week making some huge cashes then fall off for a week or two. So I’m dedicating March to playing good poker all month and not getting distracted.

Goal for the month of March: $15,000+

We’ll see how the battle goes..

Posted by Poker Pizzo at 1:04 AM 2 comments