World Poker Blogger Tournament results, for me

I played in the World Poker Blogger Championship tournament at PokerStars today, and had a great time. I more or less kept my head above water during the first few rounds by playing tight and making moves when I had the opportunity. I caught some good hands that held up and built up my stack during the middle stages. Once I had some chips, I tried to use them to my best advantage and steal blinds when I could. Thanks to a few big pots, I was among the chip leaders for a good portion of the time. I made it past the bubble at 55th place, and wondered if I should try to dump my chips to take the PokerStars jacket that the finishers in 41st to 54th place got. That thought only crossed my mind for about a nanosecond; at that point I was well up in chips and knew I could last a good while longer. The idea of winning it all and getting a trip to the WSOP Main Event looked pretty sweet, plus the other prizes at the higher levels were nothing to sneeze at.

You can read more about how the tourney went at the PokerStars blog. I have requested my hand history from the tourney and plan to look through it for highlights, and things in my game to work on. Maybe I will post more about it in the near future. But suffice it to say, I eventually got all my chips in when my M was below 10 with AKo. My opponent had AA, and I was unable to overcome that domination. I finished in 26th place and won a 4 GB I-Pod Nano. My 14 year old son is already jealous.

I am very pleased not just with my final placement (26th out of 2,247), but with my play tonight. I didn't make a lot of donkey moves, and made what I thought were mostly good decisions. I'm looking forward to the next tourney that I enter, to see if I can keep the success streak going.

Update: PokerStars e-mailed me the cool trophy graphic for being a "bronze" winner. I kinda like it.