I wanted to thank everyone who followed the tournament on day 2 and wished me good luck at the final table. Special thanks to Jason, Jeff, Stephen and Alexis for the in-person cheer section :) Going from short stack to chip leader was definitely an adventure. Instead of doing a boring post about strategy or luck-sack situations I'd rather steal the live update notes from Jason and provide what I was thinking during key moments.

Live Updates w/ Commentary

• 4:15 pm - Adrian has stolen blinds twice and has about 380k in chips I was ready to push with any decent hand since I started with the button, but the first 4 or 5 hands somebody else went all in before the action got to me. I finally picked up under the gun and push – turns out I should have limped instead. Second time I had . I am still pretty nervous and expecting to go out first or second
• 4:18 pm - One revolution and Adrian is on the button again with 350k Decided I could be patient and wait for better hands that the crap I've been seeing
• 4:20 pm - Wait - there's an all-in! 2 people are out, Adrian on the button again I almost pushed this hand with but I choose to lay it down because to other players looked really happy when they looked at their cards: go little black book discipline! I'd have ran into mega-monster and not made 7th place
• 4:21 pm - tied with one guy for short, 7 players total
• 4:23 pm - M = 5.5 My M is low so is everyone else who doesn't have 1M chips...please someone double me up
• 4:27 pm - some dude's KQ just took out one guy with AQ by spiking a K! Top 6 baby!
• 4:28 pm - Adrian all in for 345k, no calls I was under the gun with and the BB wanted to called me badly. He was another short-stack that I befriended and he mucks flashing me
• 4:31 pm - He'd short stack and guaranteed 5k or so for 6th
• 4:33 pm - another shove by Adrian and no calls Can't remember my cards here, but I am pretty sure I did not want a caller
• 4:35 pm - so far no flops without all in preflop. Sitting at 400k.
• 4:36 pm - all in again, no calls Realized the big stacks where playing tighter than they should, hoping to let the short stacks consolidate, but that was not happening. So I pushed in position with medium ace
• 4:41 pm - 470k. Now tied with 2 others for short. 3 other guys have over 1 million.
• 4:41 pm - All in, no calls. This guy is a machine
• 4:44 pm - First flop of the table. Bets and calls. Chips move between the big stacks. This was a huge pot and I didn't even get to see the cards. They claimed to be vs but all I know is mr big stack #1 lost 400k to big stack #2. Good for me
• 4:54 pm - All in from his SB, no calls. My hand sucked but the medium stack to my left was so tight he was only calling me if he woke up with top 4 hands – quick way to add 15% to my stack
• 4:55 pm - One more eliminated. JJ limp to catch somebody and small goes in with 66. Buh-bye! Top 5! Wow, I made top 5...I was surprised and a lot less nervous at this point. I really expected to have lost a race by now. I guess showing my good cards on shoves might have helped
• 4:57 pm - Other short stack just doubled up. Now they are talking chop. My "friend" to my right doubles up and starts up the wheel and dealing. I am sitting on 468k, he is at 500k and the big guys still around 1 million
• 5:04 pm - They redid payouts by agreement: 25k, 19k, 12k, 12k, 12k. Adrian probably will finish in the 12k, but this is a tremendous deal for him. 5th only got 6k previously and Adrian is short by far. One of the big stacks didn't want to have anything to do with first place getting less than 30k because he has to pay 30% taxes in Finland (uh!). I didn't want anything to do w/ last place getting less than 11k, my quote: I'll coin-flip 3k to make 20k every day of the week. I double-up once through you and it's a whole new ball game. Turns out I got quoted back 2 hours later...
• 5:05 pm - Now they are arguing more. Maybe no deal.
• 5:11 pm - Final deal is 28k, 17k, 12k, 11k, 10k. That's guaranteed 3rd place money. Not a bad deal for the guy with half the average stack. Finally realized the german only cared about 1st place, so somebody proposed taken a bit from second and we all agreed.
• 5:16 pm - And Adrian is all in again. Time to loosen up and go for first! No calls. Almost got called since everyone thought it was a move due to the chop, turns out I had
• 5:24 pm - Jeff's (Weezermoo's) advice: "monkey mash" it in and go for 2nd.
• 5:25 pm - Adrian actually saw a flop, bet and took it down. Raised with and missed. He folded to my continuation bet though since I had a pretty tight image
• 5:37 pm - They are bleeding him out. Hasn't done much lately. Folded a full 2 revolutions because I knew people were calling lighter after the deal, I wasn't about to loose my patience like the day before. I started getting glares from my cheerleading section as I folded 20% of my stack
• 5:43 pm - All-in and called!!!!!
• 5:46 pm - Won the hand with TT vs AT, and the case T hit in the window! DOUBLE UP and more! Now almost average with 4.8M chips in play. Big stack limps (which he had done twice with good hands), second big stack limps also, SB folds, I am in the BB with and instant-shove. Limper #1 instant-calls (almost too quick for my taste) but doesn't go over the top which I found odd. After a couple of minutes limper #2 folds and I am hoping they had each others outs. He turns over but I am still worried. Limper #2 said he folded . Flop has the case ten and I turn a boat. Ok, I can breathe now...
• 5:49 pm - 800k+ in chips. Average stack now. Thinking I can play a real hand of poker now...
• 5:54 pm - Chips: 1.5M, 1.1M, 900k, Adrian at 850k, last guy at 600k
• 6:08 pm - Adrian made his first not all-in raise of the final table and saw a flop. He had to fold, and is now probably back to shoving. This is the second time at the final table where I connected with the flop but a big stack shoves all in over me so I had to fold. Turns out knowing this pattern about my play was important later
• 6:13 pm - Saw another flop . Adrian bets the flop and chip leader flat calls. Turn comes and Adrian fires another shot, chip leader goes all in... Adrian thinks...and calls. I thought for 3 full minutes on this hand, I had . Obviously I was continuation betting and he probably knew that but his bet didn't make much sense to me. The way he was playing all night he obtained max value from his hands. If he had a piece of the flop the J was as much a scare card for him that for me. I had a tight image so I could have a piece of it. If he was floating me and hit the J he would flat call and go all in in the river or maybe raise me some but a shove on the turn said I want the 320k that's there go away like you have previously. I could have had "plenty" if I folded, but I thought my high was good and even if I was horribly wrong I had outs - so I called.
• 6:14 pm - New Adrianism: "And the queen for pleasants", which means good I suppose. The river was a blank and he says nice call I have A high and shows to which I answered, I know, me too and the queen for pleasants. I then proceeded to do something really rude and yell out 'ship it' from the top of lungs – I did apologize later while staking my 1.6M chips ;)
• 6:18 pm - He's chip leader at about 1.7M - that's about 1/3 of the chips!
• 6:28 pm - Chip leader coming in to final table is now severely short stacked, and probably out soon.
• 6:41 pm - 2.3M. Approaching half of the final table chips with 5 players still in. The remaining players were debating if I was a genius or a mad man, but in the meantime I kept raising and stacking 500k more without any significant challenge. I had to force myself to fold some to maintain some respect
• 6:42 pm - Only 4 left! Adrian took out the short stacked former chip leader. Karma is a bitch. This is finland guy who after loosing two big pots ran scared and let himself bleed out
• 6:47 pm - Still around 2.15 in chips.
• 6:58 pm - They all have enough chips to play, so it's pretty uninteresting right now.
• 7:04 pm - The tournament organizer says it should be over in about an hour. I am pretty sure it was later than 7pm by now, it felt like 8pm to me
• 7:04 pm - Down to 3. Short stack got bad beat. They are renegotiating the split now. gets rivered by -- guess that 38% can come back to bite you...
• 7:15 pm - Almost over. They are chopping.
• 7:27 pm - They chopped 3-way and Adrian gets the trophy, the picture, and $21,613 since he was the chip lead!!! Picture soon.

I really really wanted to play it out since I had such a commanding control over the last few hours. But after seeing the big stacks get unlucky, the short stacks get lucky and based on the advise of my support squad: I decided not to get pro'd -- so I took my check, my new card protector and my picture and spent the rest of the night celebrating Vegas style, after all I did outlast 466 people :)

The Wednesday tournament was interesting. I wasn't catching any cards, but I did manage to slowly build up my stack to an M of 15 with 28k in chips and 80-some people left (36 out of 366 cashed). Then the stars aligned: I ran out of paper in the Little Black Book, got moved tables and got tired of not catching cards and folding 2 revolutions so I defended my big blind with . I put the raiser on big cards although he was the other large stack at the table, so it could have been a move...

Flop comes . I check-call his 1/2 pot bet knowing my was probably no good. And then it came the mistake: the comes on the turn and I bet out. He raises me all in and after realizing that I would only have 13k if I fold, I reluctantly called and said "nice hand". He turns over and the river comes blank for me. I was really upset and after thinking thru this hand more I should have check-raised the flop all in or just folded.

It gets better though: I get up to leave and turns out I have 1000 chips left and I am the next big blind so I am all in blind. 5 people call and 2 people create a side pot after the flop. I flip over my cards to wake up to which makes a full house! If I had just folded one more hand, I could have played my boat with 27k in chips and 2 willing donors. I went all in a few more hands in a row and made it all the way back up to 17k in chips. Finally I can play a few hands so I raise with and the same Mr. Two Pair from earlier who was sitting pretty with 50k flat-calls me. Flop comes . I bet, he raises, I shove, he says "sorry I have to call you" and turns over...yep, again.

I spend the rest of the night mad for 2 reasons:

1. I put all my chips when I was behind
2. I danced with the only other stack at the table that could hurt me, after just moving

At least Jeff made it to the money, so I got over it and decided to try and play better the next day ;)

For those of you who don't know, the Little Black Book™ is my personal record of play at tournaments. It is literally a small black book with a pen (picture forthcoming) that I started using when I played in tournaments above my bankroll to keep me in check. I quickly realized it was a great tool to not only understand how I played, but keep track of the other talent (or lack thereof) at the table. All fun jokes aside, its track record is not perfect, but some of the ideas it gave me are certainly insightful.

For example, everyone who's read any poker books knows that paying attention is a key element, even when you are not in a hand. But let's face it, for me it can get very boring...not anymore with the little black book. I can remain focused studying my previous notes about the players involved in the hand and guess their hands, bets, Hollywood moves, etc. If there is a showdown, I get to measure my results with the actual outcome and improve the notes. By the time I am involved for big bucks, I hopefully have a better sense on what's going on.

That's only half of it though. This is really about individual play analysis too: what did I call down Mark 'The Rock' with and why? When I am choosing to over bet the pot and against whom? Am I really playing looser than Jason (as if!)? What will be my starting hand range for this session? Did I develop a betting pattern that was obvious even to the fly on the wall? All these and more are things that I track and then check against previous performance. Not surprisingly, some lessons started to emerge.

I am going to spend a few posts describing several of my "Black Book Rules" regarding what I write down and when and then a few more posts with my personal lessons. I am very interested in feedback to improve the system, so let me know what you think (even if you think is total bu#l$#@t) either here or next time I see ya. And yes, I probably won't be able to help myself and spill the beans on some of my notes on you :P