I've never had a 5-figure score until a week ago, when I played the initial tournament at the APPT Sydney. They started the series off with a 1K Deepstack Event with a starting field of 268, split into two "Day 1s".

I played the second one, got off to a great start when I 4-bet for one-third of my stack preflop holding AA, the other guy called (lol) and couldn't get away from KK on a JT4ss flop. He tanked for 4 minutes and eventually called... GG sir.

Other than that my Day1 was a rollercoaster. First table was great with only a few guys who knew what they were doing (or so it seemed to me at the time at least) and I built my stack without much risk.

Halfway through the day the tournament director came by our table and was eyeing stacks at the table - I could kind of feel him looking at me, but thought perhaps if I sit really still... lol. Nope, no such luck - and he moved me... to the table... of... death. Or... you know, something less dramatic.

Well, in comparison at least it was a horrible table draw. I refused to consider myself the soft-spot, but it was obviously a tough table and a lot of pressure was being applied in various spots. One such spot came up after a couple of orbits.

UTG, 9handed, with 32K behind I open QQ to 1800 at 300/600/a75. Folds to young guy with a hoodie, big shades and huge earphones in MP who lifts one of his earphones and asks me how much I'm playing. I tell him (he covers), he considers for a few seconds and then flatcalls. Not sure what to make of that. Heads-up to the flop which was Tc 8c 4s. I consider for about 10-15 seconds and bet 2650, only to have him stare at me and make it 7K. Puke... Either I made a good laydown or... well, the other option. Still annoys me.

I finally get moved to my third table of the day, which was a lot softer except for one spot - last year's winner on my left. He seemed to leave me alone though and I chipped up by picking spots against what I perceived to be some of the weaker spots.

I ended Day1 in the bottom third of the field with 27K in spots (starting stack was 15K) and blinds at 600/1200/a200.

Day2, I got off to a good start busting someone even shorter than myself when my TT beat his AK. From there, things really took off with a rush of decent cards and pretty soon I was sitting on roughly 85K. I kept this going until the money bubble slowed play to a ridiculous pace, at which point I went absolutely card-dead. I had enough to kind of maintain a stack, but never found too many good resteal spots and dwindled as a result.

Once the bubble burst I was down to about 13BBs and made my one questionable play of the tournament when I got it in with Kh9h against an EP raise. I was 'lucky' enough that the other guy showed AsQs and I ended up making a flush to stay in the tournament.

Nothing too interesting until we were down to two tables. I had been abusing the others a little bit here and there with my 17BB resteal stack (everyone was opening light it seemed - I never got called) and finally had a chance to get some real chips when the button shoved 11BBs into my BB. I snapped with JJ only to see the flop come down 325, giving him a set of 3s. FML...

As is the case with these things, they even out and I was to catch lightning in a bottle myself only shortly thereafter. From the HJ, 8-handed I shove 66 with 13-14BBs only to have the SB call me with TT. Flop: 689, Turn: 9. River: 2. Oh well...

When the final table came together, I was 8th in chips with Lee Nelson on my immediate left. Lee was sitting on a gazzzilion chips and looked primed to win the whole things. The fact that he had position on me was pretty inconsequential, as I was in fold/push mode anyway, but we chatted a bit - nice guy and a solid player for sure.

I stole, re-stole to the best of my abilities throughout the final table, but finally with 6 left my A9o was unable to best 77. Disappointed when it happened (cause I really felt I had a good shot if only I could get some chips) but being handed AUD 10,760 in the cage softened the blow considerably.

My biggest online win was for USD 3.5K so I felt this was quite an achievement and I'll probably be looking to play more live when I get a chance.

GG.

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