TomBraband
My first WPT final table!(how i got there)
I'm writing on the morning of my first ever televised/ wpt final table. I usually wake up around 10:30 or 11 but today I'm awake at 8:30 and I don't have any intentions on going back to sleep. As you can imagine, I'm pretty excited and I can definitely feel the blood shooting through my veins a little quicker on this morning. Im gonna try to relax for 2 more hours before showering, shaving and heading to the store to buy a new dress shirt for today. I have to be there at 2 pm even though the final table starts at 4 pm for interviews and hair and makeup. I'm going to make another post all about my final table experience, but I thought I'd let you know how I got there in this post, my journey along the way, if you will.
I started out by arriving 15 minutes before the start of the tournament to register. Apparently I needed a players card which I didn't know until I got to the front of the registration line, thankfully it wasn't too long. I got sat about 15 min after it started at a table with all the rest of the people who late registered. Several of them just happened to be my friends from the poker community. Usually tournaments keep an open seat or 2 at each table for the late registrars so all the people who come late don't start at the same table, not sure why it was different in this. It was set up pretty poorly in my opinion. On top of that, normally atleast if they sat all the late registrars together they would break them first, but they decided to break the opposite side of the room so I had to play all day with the following people at my table:
around to my left was Hafiz "hafizzle" Khan, Zach Hyman, Shawn "buck21" Buchannon, Adam "Roothlus" Levy, Dan Heimiller, one random, Matt "aLLinat420" Stout, and Tim "Tmay420" West.
Adam and I talked about how everyone was good at the table so no one could get out of line at all. There wasn' anybopdy abusing anyone else but there were no free chips at the table anywhere. It made for a tough day 1, although I did come out of it with the most chips at our table. Ended the day with 73k. There weren't that many interesting hands, I was playing really tight all day long because of the table draw. I did turn a one pair hand into a bluff against Dan Heimiller on one hand that I probably didn't need to but it worked out for a big pot. Other than that it was mostly small ball. I did knock out hafizzle JJ to A10 when I was the 4th caller in the sb with and he shoved 25 bbs from the bb.
Day 2 I started out with a bunch of unknowns at my table but was moved rather quickly to a different table and sat next to a friend of mine Darryl "Dfish" Fish. It seemed like a very good table draw for a large majority of the day. I had a few older gentlemen on my left that I assumed were going to play pretty straight forward although they made the day tougher than I had expected. I was fortunate enough to cooler the man on my left KK to QQ to get a full double up from 85k to 160k mid way through the day. I had been opening a lot of pots and he 3bet me and shoved when I 4bet him. A couple new players got moved to our table and I took about 2 minutes on a deccision in one of the pots and a new player called the clock on me. I ended up folding but 10 minutes later I raised AK utg and he 3bet me, I 4bet him and called his shove for a little more and ended up having aces but I hit running diamonds to run out a flush and beat him. I didn't say it to his face but I really didn't feel too bad because he had called the clock on me earlier. Karma burns! haha. I kept playing solid poker the rest of the day and even had the chip lead for an hour or 2 when I got up to 350k at dinner when the blinds were still only at 800/1600. The structure in this tournament was great. I had one interesting lay down when an aggressive older gentlemen who I had just won a pot against check raised me on a T55 when I had A10 to 20k, I called and then he shoved 100k into 40k on the turn and I went deep into the tank, announcing to the table that it was gonna take awhile and that they should go to the bathroom now if they needed to. i ended up thinking for almost 11 minutes and finally folded. I had got some information from a friend that said he liked to overshove really big hands like sets and 2 pairs so I was really cocnerned with him having a 5. He defended his big blind a ton so I definitely put a 5 in his range. He told me after the day that he had the same hand as me but I still like my fold at that point in the tournament because I was pretty sure he would never just shove a worse hand like that.
Day 3 started and I was in 5th out of 60, 45 being paid. I started out with a great draw, getting the chip leader Phil "USCPhildo" on my direct right but we got moved early on in the day so I didn't get to play much with position on him. I then got moved to a terrible table with JC Alvarado on my left, Marco Johnson a couple to my left and Erica Shoenberg a few to my right. There were several other good players at the table that were playing aggressive so I played tight once again and tried to just keep playing solid hands. I ended up losing AK to marco's AQ for a 200k pot or so but still had about 330k at 2k/4k. Nothing much happened until I got in a pretty big pot with Erica where I raised an A54 flop and she didn't believe me and decided to 4b the flop. i just called and bet the turn and took it down. I won't say what I had but it was a really big momentum booster at the time for me, bringing me up to just shy of 400k. We redrew at 27 left and I again drew a very tough table. I had Jared Jaffe (who made the final table) on my left, along with a lot of other good players including Wade "soggy dogg" woeffel. One of the first hands I played at that table I raised 99 utg and Jared 3bet me right next to me. i called and saw a flop of 1098. I checked to him and he checked behind. At this point I was putting him on AK, possibly, QQ or AA. The turn was a great card I thought, the king. I checked again hoping he would bet it but he didn't The river was a 4 and i decided that he was going to try to value bet his AK on the river so I checked a 3rd time and he did oblidge and bet 88k. I then shoved for my remaining 340k or so and he eventually made the call and told me he had aces. A great double for me, getting me up to over 750k.
I got moved to another table with Jon Little on my left and my good friend Dave Sands across the table. Didn't get involved in too many hands until an older gentlemen raised utg and I flatted AK. It came JTx and i called a continuation bet. The turn was a king and he bet out fairly large again and I called again. The river was a 9 putting a 4 card straight out and he checked to me. I put him on a 2 pair or set type hand and I assumed that he would know I had a lot of queens in my range and I didn't think I had the best hand so i decided to bluff at it for 160k. He eventually made the call with aces which suprised me a lot, but I now knew that he was a calling station and that bluffing this man was out of the question. I played pretty tight after that for awhile, I watched dave lose AK to AQ on the river for a pretty large 500k pot and then raised 99 into his bb a few orbits later. He 3bet me and I think 99 is well enough ahead of his range to put all my chips in the middle so I did. He eventually made the call with AQ for the remainder of his chips and I held for a 700k pot. Definitely had fun playing with him, he played very well as usual. My last hand I played on the night was interesting. The chip leader got moved to my right with almost 2 million and he was raising a ton. I 3bet his utg raise and then Tyler "brainwash" Cornell cold 4bet from the sb to 175k. I thought this was just a great spot for him to cold 4b and I know he's definitleey capable of having air here. The chip leader eventually folded and went with my instincts that was light and I shoved in my 800k stack and he folded. I showed the 9 of hearts 
Day 4 was going really well for me, I started playing tight again to get a feel for the table before opening it up when there were about 13 left. I raised A8 in the cutoff and a very aggressive online kid who had just 3bet and folded to soggy dogg's shove, reshoved about 25 bbs(280) against me and I went into the tank for a few minutes before calling. He had q8 and I held to get over a million. I then did some 3betting on the final table bubble to chip up to 1.4m for the 10 handed redraw. I think I won 2 pots while we were 10 handed, I had aa once and 3b and the guy folded, and then flatted jacks against the chip leader and his a3o outflopped me and I only called one bet and we checked it down on an ace high flop. I squeezed into the 6 handed, televised final table with just under a million chips. sitting in 5th of 6, but I still have a little over 40 big blinds to work with. It's definitely going to be an exciting day, and hopefully a long and profitable day as well. Good luck to me!
-TT
