Young Guns: $5150 UPC II No-Limit Hold 'Em

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Goodnight Ladies

The penultimate season-two event was the $5150 and with the very small field of 24 and the starting stack of 15,000 I hoped to make another TV final table. I drew table 14, seat seven, but they broke the table almost immediately and moved me back to my unlucky table, 16, at seat seven. It was definitely the table to be at, with only two players I recognized: Bo "Legato" Sehlstedt in seat four and "S.K." Senthilkumar in seat five on my right. Then John Phan arrived 90 minutes late in seat three. I got pocket Aces cracked by King-Queen but only lost a small pot, taking me down to 12,650 at the first break.

 

I struggled to chip up to 13,025 in the next two levels but was down to 10,575 when we redrew at 18. I got table 12, seat four, and had the two loosest players in the room on my right: John Phan in seat two and Pete Lawson in seat three. Joe Awada was in seat one and Dan Pugliese seat eight. All I had to do was pick up a hand as the two young guns were entering at least half the pots. I chipped back up to 14,300 at the dinner break.

 

When we got back John Phan made a late-position raise and Pete Lawson reraised on the cutoff. I found pocket Queens on the button and while I could consider laying them down against some players there was no way I could against those two. John mucked but Pete called with pocket Kings and I was out of the contest in 16^th place.

 

Tomorrow I had the day off and then the next day was the main event.