The Window

The $1k rebuy was one of the most exciting tournaments I have ever played. I had no plans to play tight during the rebuy but was unbelievably card dead and played only a couple hands. One of them was a double with 77 vs A7s which was all I needed to coast to the add-on with decent chips. In the 100-200-25 level I picked up AA, QQ, and KK in one orbit, winning a big pot with the aces, losing the queens to Devilfish's aces, and losing the kings to a berzerko 74s all-in jam. An orbit after that I again lost a big pot with kings to Adam Geyer's AQ and was crippled. I got all the way down to 1700 chips at 150-300 before going on a wild rush to a double-average 55k stack in just a couple hours. At this point I was incredibly confident I would at least make the final table and would have put my chances at better than 10-1 to win the whole thing. I just felt it.

I was moved to a really nasty table and planned to lock it down for the night before an epiphany hit me. I suddenly realized I have no reason to fear the best players. I can typically read their hands pretty accurately. At the same time, my game is all about misrepresenting my hand, calling bluffs, and value betting. I slipped into "the zone" and continued to gain confidence right up until I lost a gargantuan coinflip with AKs against a poorly played pair of nines and hit the rail fifteen minutes before the end of the night.

I immediately signed up for the $5k six-handed event, my most anticipated tournament of the World Series besides the main. I vowed to play with the same confidence, focus and intensity I had late in the rebuy event, and I did. I brought the A-game all day but the cards just weren't good enough and eventually I busted out losing another coinflip with AK.

I have a great fear that I am not going to make The Big Score before the end of the Series. My worry is that after the Series, I will lose at least some of my current passion for tournament poker. There is only a short window available to climb Mount Everest. I'm afraid I won't get to the top before that window closes, and might not want to come back - or might not be able to come back as strong.

I'm playing the best tournament poker of my life, but that's probably still not good enough to crack the rankings of the 200 best tournament players in the world. In the coming years, more and more stars are going to emerge. It's only going to get harder. I can play to the best of my abilities, but I'm scared it's going to be too little too late.