On day three I think I got a really good table draw. Both Domcee and William Thorson were at the other table and mine was clearly much softer. Directly on my left side was sitting the last woman in the tournament, who according to everyone had been playing horribly and had managed to run incredibly well. And sure enough she did open limp buttons with 20BB stacks, limp-called every single time, donkbet folded flops, etc etc. The only thing that made playing against her difficult was that I don't think she had any idea about poker at all (she once had a straight with AT on a KQJ board but didn't realise she had one) and she seemed to be just randomly pressing buttons.

In one of the first hands an Estonian guy who was 2nd in chips opened from the hijack for 2,5BB, in a spot where the woman was in the big blind. They were both about 45BB deep as was I. He looked like a young internet guy who probably had a good idea of what he was doing, so I figured she would target the lady and open a lot of hands on her BB. Therefore I decided to 3bet to 8,5BB with K6o. Again the stacks were nicely awkward so that there's not much he can do, and since he hadn't played me before the dynamics weren't there for a 4bet bluff shove. He looked a big disgusted and folded.

A couple of hands later it was time to send the lady home. With about 15 players left I raised KJo to 2,7BB blind vs blind and she flatted in the big blind. The flop came JT3r and I cbet 16k into a 25k pot. The woman went on a weird tanking mode where she kept looking at the table, me, the other players, the dealer and the rail in a fashion that suggested she had no idea what to do. She just sat there staring at people for five minutes until someone finally called the clock on her. Now I don't know if she tilted about calling the clock or got scared or something, but she instantly announced "all-in" without probably even realising how many chips she had (about 120k) and I snap called. She had A3 and didn't improve.

A few hands later I opened QTs on very good Estonian player Andry Purk's big blind. He called in rhythm and we saw a flop of KT5. Andry checked, as did I. Turn was a brick, and Andry bet 25k into a 30kish pot. I called. The river brought a J and Andry bet 75k into an 85k pot. I called almost instantly despite there not being a missed flush draw. Based on how I'd played there was no way this could be a value bet as my whole range in his eyes should consist of hands that can't call a large bet with. Therefore I called, he showed 75o he had turned into a bluff and I scooped a huge pot with middle pair.

Soon after a couple of other players got knocked out too and we were on the final table bubble. We had two tables of just five players when Domcee got moved to my immediate left being the only person in the tournament covering me. I cursed at the situation but decided to surrender, since I still covered everyone else by a mile and figured the bubble would burst quickly enough to not cause me too much damage even if I changed into nit mode.

It took a gruelling 30 minutes during which I lost some chips, but I still managed to enter the final table with 390k with the average being 250k. I came in 2/9 ready to fight for the $100k first price. My best live score to day was $25k from EPT Barcelona so I set myself a goal of at least topping that.

The final table didn't start very well for me. I had 77 in the first hand I played, I c-bet a flop of 642r against a tight guy who with shaky hands check-raised my c-bet. I fiigured folding would be best so I just tossed my overpair without giving it too much thought. While this was standard, the next hand may seem a bit weird for a lot of people who don't play tournaments and understand the stack size rules and what they mean:

7 people left. Here are the stacks:

Hero (CO) 335k
BTN 100k
Domce Karmazinas (SB) 800k
BB 350k
William Thorson (UTG) 140k
UTG+1 255k
UTG+2 310k

William came to the FT with 220k or so and has played quite a lot of pots open limping once or twice and minraising the rest. I haven't seen any showdowns from him yet. I've played with him before although he doesn't remember this. I've seen him open limp AA in spots a lot weirder than this and also BTN limp KK with 30BB where he would have had a perfect spot for raising with his image. Overall I think he FPS's a lot and tries to be overly tricky but apart from that is of course very good.

Domce is the guy who finished 3rd in EPT Monte Carlo. I've played with him since the beginning of day 2. He is very very good, changes gears a lot, hand reads well and is generally pretty laggy but not overly so. Based on all the hands I've seen from him I am 100% sure that he's raising here preflop with an extremely tight range and definitely for value only despite having a lag image in general. I've seen him overlimp 87s / 33 in spots that would be a lot better for isolating than this one is. And he of course also realises William's stack size and the suspiciousness of his UTG limp.

So:

3000/6000/500. William limps UTG, folded to me. I look at TT and choose to overlimp. Folded to Domce who raises to 23000. William thinks for a while and calls (?), I call.

What do you think about my overlimp? I decided that I'm not comfortable going broke vs William if he limp-shoves so I felt I had to overlimp. The other reason I did this was the BTN was a Finnish guy who I know understands pushbotting and may shove relatively light here, so I can snap him off if William folds.

Flop 742 (78000)
Domcee bets 38k, William folds, I call.

Turn 4 (156k)
Domce bets 85k, I fold.


Domce definitely thinks I'm very good and knows I hand read well. He's seen me call a very big bluff in the FT bubble for 70% of my stack with 2nd pair (I called 2 PSB bets on KT593 with JT). During the FT I've been really tight due to being totally card dead but I don't think he thinks I'm scared money or anything.


Thoughts on everything? I am certain that overlimping was best with my reads at the time (had I known more about William's game and his weird tendencies I would definitely have raised), but I've heard advice from folding the flop to raising the turn to calling turn and all non-heart/A/K rivers. The more I think about it I feel I should probably actually just fold on the flop despite the ridiculous underrepresentedness of my hand.

After the hand I was only left with about an average stack. The blinds went up pretty fast, and to be honest I don't think I saw a single flop after this hand. My push-fold game is definitely very good and I was able to 3bet resteal with total air quite a lot to stay afloat. I still tried to play reasonably tight as Stars had also added a 6k EPT package for the best Stars qualifier and there were only two other guys left with Stars patches. Luckily enough they busted quite quickly and four-handed I had already ensured myself the seat and at least 15k of prize money.

Four-handed the remaining players were Domcee with a ridiculous chiplead, William second in chips and a random Lithuanian guy who had a similar stack to mine. In big blinds Domcee had roughly 80, William 50 and me and the other guy about 25. Since he was obviously my only target, I 3bet junk every time he opened and he folded every time. He seemed to tilt a bit, and finally 3bet shoved against Domcee's open with QTo only to run into AQ. He didn't improve and we were 3-handed.

I managed to steal the blinds a couple of times, but then the blinds went up again leaving me with only 15BB against their 60 and 40 or so. In the first hand after the blind increase I shoved K7o from the small blind against Domcees big blind, he woke up with A2o and I didn't hit. I finished 3rd for a $40,000 payday and a $6k EPT package. Not too bad for a three days work!


As I'm finishing this I'm only six hours from Vegas and somewhere above the Atlantic Ocean. I'm playing my first WSOP tomorrow at noon (1,5k NLHE). The WSOP structures seem to be really really bad when it comes to side events (wtf 90BB starting stacks?), but at least I'm better at pushbotting than most people so I probably have a decent chance to do well. I'm staying in Vegas until I bust from the Main Event, in other words about 3,5 weeks. I'm playing every NLHE event - 7 or 8 total depending on how deep I go in them as some of them take days to complete and the 10k Main Event. There are also two other excellent tournaments serieses going on. the Venetian Deepstack Extravaganza and the Caesar's Palace Megastack series. Both have great structures and deep stacks with buy-ins ranging between $300 and $1000 for the most part. I'm going to play these every day I'm not playing a WSOP event, so I should be able to get 15-20 live tournaments under my belt during this trip. I'm going to write a day-to-day trip journal here. You can expect the first update right after I bust from tomorrow's WSOP!

Until then, good luck all.