Today we continue the profiling of the AussieMillions $15,000 package winners. DJSP77 tells of a hard decision to fold a good hand at the bubble, while Org45 tells of a very late night of poker where he finished the tournament only few hours before start of the working time.
DJSP77
I qualified through the PokerNews exclusive satellites. The first one was a $6 buy-in and the second a freeroll for the qualified players from the first satellite. In this second satellite I won the entry to the final tournament.
It was a very pacific tournament due the excellent blind structure. I felt it was very easy until we got down to 30 players.
The bubble was very long and tough. With 24 players left I was 11th in chips. But it wasn’t easy and I was in a serious trouble when we were playing for the bubble because I was between 19th and 21st in chips during the bubble play.
I had a very tough decision with 21 players left. I had less than 2.5 big blinds, I was in the small blind holding ace-queen and it was folded to me. I decided to fold because the other short stack was posting the blinds before me. I think it was the correct decision in this tournament.
I played 2 times the PokerNews Cup at Melbourne in 2008 and 2009. In 2008 I finished 21st in the Main Event and in 2009 I won the Event 9 (Teams Event). I played the PokerNews Cup Alpine 2009, finishing in the 16th place as bubble boy. I also play the major tournaments in Portugal and some in Spain.
It’s my 3rd time in Melbourne and I want to go to some nice places that I knew in the previous trips. About the tournament I would be very happy if I could reach the final table, but my main goal is, like always, play well and make the correct decisions every time.
I would love to meet Daniel Negreanu and play on the same table as him because he’s my favourite poker player. I also would be very happy if I could play on the same table as other famous players like Joe Hachem, Phil Ivey or Gus Hansen.
Org45
I qualified to the final through the 70 dollar sub-qualifiers. I think I tried just two times before making it to the final last Sunday.
I must say, the final had a surprisingly fine structure that suits my patient approach. The single most important hand for me was when I was lingering somewhat behind average and suddenly got lots of action with my flopped set of tens on a drawish flop of 9-10-rags with two spades. Two players followed my all-in. Now I had I big chance to triple up, as I had to be ahead. I hoped that they were not on two different draws (straight and flush), as this would give me the least chances. Maybe a lower set?
Well, turned out they both had spade draws. That’s nice for me, as they then have some of each others outs. As you of course understand, my hand held up and I finally had some chips to work with. As the antes were introduced I tried to be somewhat more aggressive staying afloat with selective stealing. I did not get good hands, but was fine through selective stealing. As the hours went I was fortunate enough to double up times, as I flopped sets with small pairs and the villains had aces the both pushed to my re-raise.
Then came the end-game that I, in all modesty, do quite well. It is not about the cards as much as the adversaries. You have to find out who the good players are and push against their raises with any-two cards, as they know that risking their stack in a satellite is very il-advised, sometime even with AA! As the bubble approached I got some much-needed chips pushing every hand against a good Swedish player to my left. I knew he would not call without AA, KK, maybe even not then. As the bubble bust, I was happy and very tired, only 3 hours to my work began here in Norway… Don’t tell my boss :)
I have played the Main Event WSOP, two EPTs in Barcelona and 5-6 other minor tournaments. Multi-table tournaments is such a lottery, even if you play very well you need to have such amount of luck, and a lot of it just at one tournament to win. I prefer to count my money as lost and just enjoy it as a fun experience. For me such tournaments are a great way to travel as the packages I won help pay for my flights and hotel.
I want to have fun and to get to see more of South-Asia. I love travelling and plan to visit both Dubai, Sydney, Kuala Lumpur and Singapore as part of the exchausting long journey from Norway. I would of course not mind making the money in the tournament either..
To be honest I do not find so called poker stars interesting at all, but I do hope to meet some nice people at and away from the tables.
We have profiled 7 more of the great winners, you can read their poker winning stories here, here and here.
