6/28/06 $1,500 Pot limit

After playing very tight for an hour or so, and not picking up many hands, the fish started getting some solid preflop hands, and let everyone at the table know about it. For about an hour or so the only words out of my mouth were “pot….pot….pot….pot”. I won a big coin flip against Dappo, whom I had recognized from the WPT Championship (also from the Denver area) with my AK against his QQ all-in preflop for 4,000. After which I raised the next 8/10 pots or so. Finally a 2,000 stack in the big blind had enough of my bullying and called my raise preflop. I had A8, and the flop came a picture perfect A,8,x. check, I bet, he called. Turn was a brick, check, I bet, he called. River bricked again, check, I put him in, he quickly called and was shown the top two and exited. Now I was up to 7k or so and on a tear. After taking many blinds (no antes in pot limit unfortunately) and winning a couple more hands I was up to 9k by the first break. However, after the break I lost a couple pots, including AQ losing to KT all-in preflop and being re-raised a couple times when I held garbage, I was down to 7k. I played many big pots with the guys on my immediate left and immediate right, particularly the guy on the right. He was a complete non-believer and we battled it out for a good part of the day. Finally he raises to 900 in the cutoff (blinds at 150/300) and I look down at AA on the button with a 5,500 stack. I greedily make it 2,100 and he happily called. Flop was a dreadful J,T,9 and he checked. I knew there was no way I was folding this hand at any point, and that the board was only going to get scarier, so I thought my only play was to go all-in for my last 3,400 and it would look more like a bluff if he had a mediocre hand and was thinking about calling. However, once he beat me into the pot, he didn’t even need to turn his hand over, as I instantly knew I was drawing near dead. Sure enough he flipped over the K,Q for the flopped nuts and no miracle for the fish. From this event I felt like I played incredibly well. I think I siphoned off a few too many chips by raising a few too many hands when people weren’t backing down to me near the end, but overall I was happy with how I played. I guess the one thing I learned was that picking up the blinds wasn’t nearly as important as in No limit, because there were no antes, so patience reigns over aggression in pot limit tournies.