Yesterday I played in the FullTiltPoker $300 + $22 WPT Paris Qualifier, the last step to try and make a WPT tournament. There were 52 pretty tough players including one "Gold Jersey" FTOPS winner
mcentinc and the excellent player
thegreat22. I did not recognize many of the other names but assumed I was not playing lobotomy patients.
I won !
1st place is US$16,000, which is the €10,000 entry fee and US$3,000 for flight and hotel.
I played this tournament pretty tight and pretty aggressively, ... I did not want to give any of this caliber of player an edge on my play, since I suspected that ANY weakness would be ruthlessly exploited. I showed down AK, AA, and QQ after some successful raises, just to communicate that if I had a hand, it was being pushed and it was a real hand. Two of the rare bluffs that actually got called I folded one and the other connected with flop in a nasty (for my opponent) way, and he was rail-bound.
Sounds good, but reality is rarely that cut and dried
as some of my hands got drawn out on.
I was pushed down close to the felt three times, twice when a good hand was drawn out on and once when I played like an imperial donkey, pushing Q9o, suddenly realizing "what the hell am I doing?"
Drawn down? I flop a str8 and go all in on a check raise only to have my opponent find one of his four outs on the river to make his two pair a full house
.
It was a lot of fun and the Heads up match was a back and forth battle which was so fascinating, I completely forgot about the prize, ... it was all about trying to outplay my opponent.
I knew that the postings at livepokerforum would be useful. Thanks to all the posters of interesting and real poker information on the site! I really does help!