After writing yesterday's blog I decided to play a satellite into the FTOPS $216 Shootout tournament.  If I won the seat I was going to shoot for the day, if I didn't, I was going to take the day off and take a learning day of watching videos and hand analysis.  Anyways I won my seat into the tournament so it was shooting time.  The way a Shootout tournament works is that you play a 1 table sit and go, and if you win your table you proceed.  All and all you need to win 4 sit n goes to win the whole tournament.  First prize was $45,000 and I REALLY wanted to win it.  More than usual, maybe because I was having a shitty week, but I really focused on playing my best poker this tournament.

My first table was pretty weak and I was able to play pretty aggressive.  A lot of the guys were playing super tight because they are used to playing tight at the beginning of a big tournament.  But this is completely different, you have to win your table.. so trying to survive the early goings is useless.  I played solid and didn't take any bad beats and was able to win my first table.  After winning the first table you are automatically in the money which was nice.  The shitty part is, is that you have to sit and wait for every table to finish before you can start the next round.  I think I sat around for about an hour waiting.

The tournament started with over 1000 players and there was about 300 going into round 2.  My second table was completely opposite from my first.  Every guy at this table was a canon and nobody was folding.  I knew I had to adapt to this table by tightening up my opening range and play small pot poker.  I was able to win a coin flip early on and basically cruised to getting heads-up.  The guy I played heads-up was somewhat solid, but he wasn't great, I knew I had a significant edge.  Going into heads-up he had a 2-1 chip lead on me but I wasn't too worried.  I knew I could grind him down and wait for him to make a mistake.  We ended up playing a long match, I think it was almost an hour and a half.  I have to say I played awesome.  I was in the zone and playing real good poker.  I was able to take advantage my opponent's leaks and really took advantage of him.  I kept the pots small when I was behind, and built big pots when I had a big hand.  I won the match and felt like I was going to win the whole tournaments.

We were now down to 36 players and there was a significant bump in payouts. Just like my last table, this table was real loose aggressive.   Three and four way pots every hand.  I knew I had to take a similar approach to this table like I did in my last.  I won a small pot early and sat pretty tight.  Then I made a dumb mistake.  I got in a blind battle with a aggro fishy player in the big blind.  I won't get into the specifics of the hand, but a real stupid bluff.  Its a mistake I haven't made in a while which makes it more disappointing.  I basically should of made a 3 barrel bluff and the guy would of folded, but I checked the turn and should of given up on the river, instead I bluffed the river and got snapped off.  After that had I was crippled and could barely tread water.  Anytime I tried to pick up some blinds I got jammed on and had to fold.  I ended up getting it in short with A5 and ran into A10.. Game over.  I finished 23rd for a little over 2k.  

Thats the thing with tournaments, you can play great for 6 hours.. make one dumb mistake, and you're finished.  I'm not too disappointed because I did play really great, hopefully next time I'll break through and win won of these things.

Jay