Al Smooth 0 Posted April 25, 2007 Share Posted April 25, 2007 I just wanted to post a thank you to everyone who was on the virtual rail, as well as Cardcore and GetSprung for keeping me in a good place all day today and yesterday. It's nice to have a friendly face around to vent to at these tournaments, somtimes they can get a bit stressful. I also wanted to thank all of you who have been reading/commenting on my blog. 1000 views so far this week, a new record high for me. Thanks for supporting me and I hope you guys had as much fun as I did.See you all at the Series, I'm taking the month of May off! Link to post Share on other sites
flyingdonkey 0 Posted April 25, 2007 Share Posted April 25, 2007 Way to play this week Al, it was fun railing! Link to post Share on other sites
CiberX 0 Posted April 25, 2007 Share Posted April 25, 2007 who are you Link to post Share on other sites
DoinSublime 0 Posted April 25, 2007 Share Posted April 25, 2007 who am I?fypGreat job Al, good blog.Best of luck and continued success sir! Link to post Share on other sites
TeeSludge 0 Posted April 25, 2007 Share Posted April 25, 2007 GG Al.. the blog updates were great. Link to post Share on other sites
Al Smooth 0 Posted April 25, 2007 Author Share Posted April 25, 2007 who are youI don't know if you know this, but I'm kind of a big deal Link to post Share on other sites
yourboygsarida 0 Posted April 25, 2007 Share Posted April 25, 2007 congrats al, was fun e-railing as you tore it up Link to post Share on other sites
loxo 0 Posted April 25, 2007 Share Posted April 25, 2007 Great effort Al, a finish like this has only gotta inspire you to an even stronger WSOP. All the best. Link to post Share on other sites
Jrobb25 0 Posted April 25, 2007 Share Posted April 25, 2007 GG Al.. the blog updates were great.Link? Link to post Share on other sites
fighter 4 Posted April 25, 2007 Share Posted April 25, 2007 that is such a heart breaking blog. You dont run sick for 3 days in that sort of field by luck alone. You may not win a major tornament but you will go deeper. One 300k mistake, that sucks dude Link to post Share on other sites
NoSup4U 0 Posted April 25, 2007 Share Posted April 25, 2007 I don't know if you know this, but I'm kind of a big deallol that line always cracks me up :)Good job this week man!Mark Link to post Share on other sites
mx957 0 Posted April 25, 2007 Share Posted April 25, 2007 Well done and gg. Nice to see several FCPer's represent well! Link to post Share on other sites
Willing 2 Die 0 Posted April 25, 2007 Share Posted April 25, 2007 a kind request for somone to copy and paste Al's last blog entry for those who are working and have been whip cracked by their bosses and not allowed to view myspace at work. Link to post Share on other sites
astros11ss 0 Posted April 25, 2007 Share Posted April 25, 2007 Such a sick, hectic day of poker. One of the toughest days I've ever had in a major and I can't even think of a close second place finisher. Great players, tough decisions, and then there's little old me trying to wade through all of it.It started simply enough, believe it or not, when my very tough table seemed oh so much easier since Vinny Vinh was late showing up. Everything was pretty calm and I was playing a VERY tight game because of the presence of one Patrick Antonius to my right. As soon as Vinny showed up he started re-raising just about every pot and just having him to my left seemed to be keeping Patrick in check a little bit, and Patrick on my right was keeping all of the other players at the table to his right from getting out of line. Kind of like some sick sort of blind protection, but it's not as if Patrick wasn't attacking all of us whenever an unopened pot came his way. About half way through the first level Vinny Vinh opens a pot from second position for 10k, and the action folds around to me in the Big Blind so obviously I throw the extra 7k out there to defend my big blind because I've got a monster hand. The flop comes KQ7 and I check, Vinny bets 22k, and I call. The turn comes a 4, I check and Vinny immediately says, "I'm all in" for the rest of the 60k or so he had in his stack and I INSTACALL before he could sound out the letter 'n'. I guess you're wondering what we both held huh? As quickly as I called I slammed down the 47 of clubs for bottom two pair and Vinny exhales, slumps back into his chair and turns over A4. The river is a Queen and the biggest problem at the table as far as I was concerned was sent packing. It's fun to catch a player like him in a position like that because he tries so hard to outplay everyone at the table that when you play back at him or play mediocre hands against him (becaue his range of hands is so huge) it life tilts them for weeks. I don't know how long it's going to take Vinny to get over that one, but honestly, I don't really care. The play got me the image that I wanted at the table, and I would most certainly be getting action when I had a big hand in the future.Fortunately, Antonious was on my right , but I don't know what damned bit of difference it would have made because even though I held position on him for most of the day I'd say he outplayed me at least 5-6 times and I only dragged about three pots that the two of us were in. I had some nice hands, I busted like four people, but I just couldn't keep my chipstack steadily climbing throughout the day because I could never open any pots from position because if it folded to Patrick, he'd fire out 20k at the unopened pot and I'd be locked out most of the time. The hands he folded, I tried to jump on as many as I could, but I met resistance a lot of the time and I don't know how profitable I was over the length of the day.Late in level 3 with about 125 players left I had worked my stack up to 430k whick was WELL above the average and I felt like everything was going to fall into place for me with the bubble approaching (the tournament payed 100 spots), the table re-draw coming when we got down to 108 players and my stack being close to 1.5x the average. Unfortunately I got involved with my old nemisis of hands...AQ suited. I raised from utg to 20k, a player who I didn't have much respect for re-raised from two spots to my left to a total of 50k and the action folded around to me. Unfortunately I was hoping that my tight image and the approaching money bubble would help this guy fold his AK, QQ, or JJ if I showed strength and didn't hesitate to push my stack in over the top of his (The only time I'd pushed all in on the day was with KK against a shortish stack about an hour and a half prior to this hand, he called, I won), but unfortunately I made a bad read and a bad decision because the guy called with KK for a total of 140k in chips. The board teased me with a second spade on the ruen, but I bricked my 12 outs to the river and I was down under 300k for the first time since level one.The rest of the day was a disastrous blur. I don't think I dragged one pot for the rest of the time I was in the room. The table re-draw totally screwed me as it brought me a table of some very "amateurish" players who didn't really know what their goals were for the tournament and at least four of them just wanted to get into the money and then just gamble it up because 45k is life changing money to them I guess. It was all so frustrating. Play six hours against the a table filled with some of the best players in the world, all of whom had huge stacks of chips and hold your own and to some degree eatn their respect. Play thirty minutes with some random assed smacktards (with the excepion of like 3 of them) two and a half days into the most grueling tournament of the year and get your money in bad with J7 offsuit because you've only got an "M" of 9.I don't think that you get very many chances to win a major tournament these days. There are just so many people to fight through, so many landmines, and you simply have to run good for three, four and sometimes five days straight. I'm afraid that I might have blown one of my best chances today, and it frustrates the hell out of me.Ace Queen is the devil, If I lay it down, I'm probably posting about how I'm on to day 4 with a good chip stack, but instead, I flew too close to the sun and I died a horrible death. Never again. Link to post Share on other sites
WhatArunAA 0 Posted April 25, 2007 Share Posted April 25, 2007 that is such a heart breaking blog. You dont run sick for 3 days in that sort of field by luck alone. You may not win a major tornament but you will go deeper. One 300k mistake, that sucks dudeyes you can.. but im not downplaying al smooths success in any way. Link to post Share on other sites
Al Smooth 0 Posted April 25, 2007 Author Share Posted April 25, 2007 Link?Look underneath my sig. Link to post Share on other sites
MikeJohnson724 0 Posted April 25, 2007 Share Posted April 25, 2007 Good blog again. Good job Al, I enjoyed following you and reading your blog. GL at the WSOP. Link to post Share on other sites
Naismith 0 Posted April 25, 2007 Share Posted April 25, 2007 Another enjoyable blog. AQ does suck. It really, really sucks. I certainly wish you spiked an ace.Congrats on your run and enjoy the month off! Link to post Share on other sites
finztotheleft 0 Posted April 25, 2007 Share Posted April 25, 2007 GG ALIt was a great read, thanks Link to post Share on other sites
Al Smooth 0 Posted April 26, 2007 Author Share Posted April 26, 2007 It was a great read, thanksNo problem man, it's pretty threaputic to write after a long day at a tournament. If you guys like the blog, please feel free to subscribe. I'll post reports from every mamajor I play as well as plenty of new editions during the WSOP. Hopefully I'll meet some more of you guys at the Rio in June. GL play well! Link to post Share on other sites
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