I start day 2 with 58,400 in chips and there are 39 players left. 27 players get paid but I am not there to get 'paid' I am there to make a pay!

I intended to play as I had done the previous day, with aggression. The first hand of the day I raised in the cut off to 5200 (800/1600/300) with A2 offsuit in an unopened pot. The small blind calls and we see the flop. Q 5 6 rainbow. SB checks and I check. 2 on the turn and SB checks again. I bet out 7000 and he folds AK face up. 45 minutes later we are down to 27 players and we break down to 3 tables. It is a redraw so everybody is given a new seating assignment. I draw T2 S10.

2 rounds pass by and I am relaxing and getting to know my new players on my new table. I have been blinded down to 48,000. I am in the BB on level 12 (1200/2400/400) and I look down to see KQ. UTG+1 makes it 7500 to play and the cutoff and the button both smooth call. Its another 5100 to me and there is already 27300 in the pot. I am getting about 5.1-1 for my money so I call. The flop comes down KQ10. I flop top 2 but there is an obvious flush draw and straight draw on the board. I wanted to take this this pot down right here. I didn't want to risk a check raise in case there was no bet on the flop. I instantly went all in for my remaining 40,000. The original raiser thought for about 3 minutes and eventually folded. The cut off folded quickly and the button started thinking. Another 3 minutes passed and at this point I know I am good and want the call. He eventually folds AQ and the original raiser said he had the same hand. I am now up to about 75,000.

An hour passes and we are down to 18 players and in the next money level. The tables are redrawn again and I am in T1 S4. We are now guaranteed $3,000 but its not enough!

I am hovering around the same stack for the next 20 minutes when I hear an all-in on the next table. Amin is all in with 10 10 against AK. He is good to the river when a red ace hits the river to knock him out in 15th place. I have 67,000 in chips at this point. A few minutes later I pick up 55 in the SB and there is a raise UTG+2 to 9,000 (1500/3000/500). I call in the SB and the BB calls too. The flop come 5 10 Q. I check and the BB checks. The raiser bets 18,000 and I go all in for 40,000 more. BB fold and the raiser calls. He doesn't improve with his KQ and I double up.

At the dinner break we are told by the tournament staff that they are showcasing the final table in the poker room. There were 13 players left at the break but instead of coming back up to the tournament area after the break, they bag our chips and inform us we will continue in the poker room after the break. This is so we don't have to move when we loose 3 more players (9 handed final).

After the dinner break I have about 170,000 in chips and I am feeling great. Then it happened. I went card dead! We got down to the final table after about 40 more minutes of play and I had lost about 50,000 in blinds and antes. I started the final table with 120,000 in chips. I drew Seat 2. The average chip stack on the final table was 230,000. I was way short. It took 3 hours to loose the first player at the final table and I had dwindled down to 55,000 in chips. I had not seen a better hand than 10 7 off suit. It was the worst I'd ever seen. I found A9 UTG and pushed for 55,000 (4000/8000/2000) and was called by 77. I spiked an ace on the river and was up to 140,000. I stole a couple of blinds and went up to 170,000. Another player got knocked out an we were at 7. I dwindled again down to 90,000 with the blinds and antes being so high the chip stacks were fluctuating like crazy. I find 88 and go all in and I am called by A 10. He doesn't improve and I am back up to close to 200,000. Another player gets knocked out and we are down to 6.

Another 10 hands pass by and I have not played a hand. I am back down to about 143,000. I find QQ UTG and push. The chip leader calls me with 66 and I double up to 310,000. It is now costing about 48,000 a round. About 20 minutes later, in the 21st hour of play, the chip leader proposes a deal. A 6 way split according to chip count. I decided that if I was only going to get a couple of thousand more than I was guaranteed, I would play it out. It turned out that I was getting double what I was guaranteed so I took the deal. Below is the chip counts and the actual payouts along with the amount paid out according to the deal. The first column shows the chip counts for the 6 remaining players from the chip leader to the short stack (me!). The 2nd column shows the posted payout and the 3rd column shows what we got in the deal.

538,000 $56,596 $32,373
474,000 $33,292 $29,611
327,000 $21,640 $23,267
297,000 $15,647 $21,973
287,000 $11,819 $21,541
237,000 $ 9,155 $19,383

Needless to say, I took the deal and a healthy $19,383 payday!

Tournament Date: 28 July 2007
Buy-In: $1000 + $70
# of Players: 218
Prize Pool: $218,000
Game - No Limit Hold-Em

1st - $56,596
2nd - $33,292
3rd - $21,640
4th - $15,647
5th - $11,819
6th - $9,155
7th - $7,230
8th - $5,878
9th - $4,994
10th-18th - $3,000
19th-27th - $2,000

Alp, Amin, Amer, Brian, Carl, Ottavio and Myself played in this event over the weekend. This tournament gave 10,000 in chips to start and 1 hour blinds. This was a great structure and allowed for a lot of play. Of all the players, I didn't want Ottavio or Carl on my table because I had 10% back with them, but unfortunately I drew Carl on my table. The original plan for the tournament was to play down to the final table on Day 1 but they decided to just play till the end of level 10. (600/1200/200)

On friday night, Ottavio gave me a lecture and told me that he thought I was capable of winning this tournament if I changed 2 things about my game:
1. Play more and see more flops in the early stages of the tournament and try and outplay the table instead of just pushing.
2. Don't be so serious! The word he used was Bubbly! Be more bubbly on the table!

DAY 1

I draw table 3, seat 3. Carl is in seat 1 so at least I have position on him. In the first hour I was down to 6,000 in chips after I lost with QQ to AA on a Jack high flop. I should have read him for AA or KK but he kept betting so cheap, that I thought he was just continuation betting and trying to bluff. In the second level I managed to get my stack back up to 8,000 and by level 4 I had 11,500 when I found AA in mid position. Carl, under the gun, raised to 500 (100/200). I re-raised to 1500 to let him know where I was at and he comes over the top for 6,000. I instantly went all in hoping Carl would get the message and fold for the remaining 5,500 but he didn't. He called and showed KK. He doesn't improve and I double up to 23,000.

I remained at around this stack for the next 2 levels and even got up to around 30,000 in level 7. In level 8 I had around 28,000 when this hand came up. In the cut-off I have AK offsuit. Under the gun limps. She has a tight image but I classed her as weak player who had no idea about position and liked to play big cards. By big cards I don't mean big pairs, I mean she liked to play any two face cards. A lot of the time she would limp into pots and then if there was a raise, she would hollywood for a couple of seconds and then fold. Any, she limps under the gun and I raise to 2100 (300/600/75) and she re-raises to 5000. She has around 10,000 total. I sensed weakness in the way she raised and decided that she was trying to make a play at me because I had been playing aggressive and raising and stealing alot. I put her all in and she starts thinking. A minute goes by and now I know I am good. If she had me beat she would have called and if she had a pair I would probably be in a race situation, which isn't great, but its not a bad situation to be in. Especially if you win! Eventually she hesitantly calls and turns over KJ offsuit. Sweet, I have her dominated. A Jack hits the flop and I loose 10k. I am down to 18,000.

The next 40 minutes were terrible. It almost felt like I had lost my focus. I kept getting decent raising hands but kept missing on the flop. Nothing was working for me at that point. I had dwindled down to 8,500 by level 10 and this was the last level of the day. There was around 50 players left and 27 players made the money. I got up out of my seat and went for a cigarette. I tried to get get my head straight and decided that I would have to continue to play aggressive and accumulate chips other wise I would have no shot. I wasn't there to just creep into the money, I was there to win. At this stage of the game, a lot of players tighten up and try and creep into the money so I decided to attack the players who were creeping!

Luckily, when I got back into my seat, I started getting decent hands that I could raise with and for the next 30 minutes I went on a rush. I was taking down hand after hand, pot after pot and I felt felt good again. At the end of the 30 minute rush I was up to 50,000 in chips with 20 minutes left in the day and 42 players remained.

I finished on day 1 with 58,400 in chips. The average was 50,000 so I was slightly above and there was on 39 players left. Of the crew from Toronto, only Amin and I had survived.

This is an illustration of me drawn by a very talented lady, and fellow blogger, in Malaysia. Her name is Emila Yosuf . Please take the time to check out her website.

18:55 Arrive at Topflight
19:10 Play Satellite tourney for that nights tournament
20:05 Win said Satellite
20:45 Tournament begins
22:30 First Break, I have a cigarette
22:35 Loud banging on door downstairs, people start shouting "Somebody is trying to break in, we're getting robbed call the police!"
22:36 Carl calls the police but hangs up when he hears "Police" from the stairway.
22:36 S.W.A.T. team burst through the door and tell everybody to get their hands up. Approximately 10 S.W.A.T. guys in full riot gear and machine guns secure the area. Everybody is then told to lie down on the floor.
22:45 We, approximately 50 of us, are still lying on the floor and uniformed and Morality Bureau officers enter the building (less dramatically that the S.W.A.T. guys!).
22:50 We are all informed that we are all under arrest and we will be made more comfortable in a couple of minutes.
22:55 I am taken along with 5 others into the smoking room where we are all asked to provide some I.D. and place it on the table in front of us.
22:56 The group I am with are all informed, by an officer, not to worry, although we are under arrest we will not be charged. We will be processed and cautioned and released.
11:00 Interviews begin.
11:20 My photograph is taken, SMILE!
00:00 My interview begins.
00:12 My interview concludes.
00:13 Interviewing officer calls the station and does a background check on me.
00:15 I am released.
03:06 Carl phones me and tells me that the police have left. They seized everything, the Plasmas, tables, chips and of course, the Coffee machine!

Although my recount of last nights events are light hearted, this was, for some, a scary experience. Needless to say, Topflight Poker Room is now closed and will not re-open. There will be some lengthy investigations and some people will have to appear in court on charges of running an illegal gaming house. Some hefty fines may also have to be paid, hence the seizing of the assets of the club.

I'll miss the Topflight Monthly Tournament. It was a good one, well run and one event I looked forward to every month.

By the time we started the tournament last night there was only 18 players, so, instead of the usual $250 buy-in and 7,500 in chips, I suggested that we do $350 buy-in and 10,000 so we could have a bigger prize pool. Everybody agreed so thats what we did. Over the course of the first hour a few more players turned up and we eventually had 26 players in total. At the first break we redrew the tables and started after the break with 3 tables of 8 (2 players were knocked out in the first hour).

In the 2nd level (50/100) I pick up JJ in late position and raise to 450 after 3 players limp. Two calls as do 4 others and 6 of us see the flop. I decided to push if it came a low flop. The flop came 10 8 7 rainbow which I thought was OK, an overpair and a gutshot 9. Everybody checks to me and I go all in hoping to pick up the 2700 in the pot. I know in the back of my mind that I am only going to get called if I am beat but I do it anyway because I know the rebuy is still available! Two insta-calls me and everybody folds. Before the turn is dealt and we have turned over the cards, Two and I agree to split the cost of the re-buy. He turns over 88 for middle set and a 7 on the turn leaves me with only 2 cards to win the pot. I don't hit and call for chips!

For the next few levels I was stealing and playing pretty good and then I was card dead for a long time. When we were at 16 players, I had about 12,000 in chips and I pick up KJ in late position and raise to 1800 (300/600). Joe Zapps calls me in the small blind and the big blind calls too. The flop comes K7J, I flop top 2. Joe bets out 4500, big blind folds and I go all in for 10,100. Joe calls and turns over 89 for a flush draw and a gutshot straight. Brick, Brick on the turn and river and I am up to 25,000 in chips.

By the time we are down to the final table I have about 24,000 in chips. 2nd hand, I raise to 4200 (600/1200/100) with JQ and GiGi goes all in for 10K. I think for a a minute or so, I know she has minimum AK but I am getting 2.5-1 for my money so I call. She flips over AK but I flop 2 pair and knock her out . For the next 3 rounds I do not get a playable hand. Eventually I pick up AK on the button (1,500/3,000/200) and the cutoff raises to 10,000 after one player limps. I have about 30,000 and I go all in, he folds and with the blinds and antes I am up to 45,000.

5 handed, in the money, barely, I pick up AK on the button again. I have about 60,000 in chips and there is one limper (2500/5000/500). I go all in and Carl, in the small blind, calls. He shows QQ. Its a race and he has me covered by 1,000! The flop comes 975. I have 2 over cards and the nut flush draw, which makes me a very marginal favorite (51.5% - 48.5%). I miss on the turn and the river and come 5th for the second tournament running.