Bond18 runs good

There are a few online players that I rail/follow on PokerStars when I'm not actually playing. Most of them are because I read their blogs or they're well known on the Two Plus Two poker forums. The main ones are Alex Fitzgerald (Assassinato), Tony Dunst (Bond 18), Nick Rainey (MI_turtle) and Shaun Deeb (shaundeeb).

Its been a relatively quiet last few weeks as Alex has been back visiting his family in Seattle and Shaun Deeb is on hiatus from poker for a while.

Most of the focus has been on Nick as he has been grinding like a madman over the last few months in his quest for TLB points and the chance to be the first player ever to win consecutive monthly leaderboards on PokerStars. He's currently sitting in second place behind Simonator who came out of nowhere after coming 3rd in the Turbo Takedown.

Today tho was all about Tony Dunst. He hasn't had the best year on PokerStars being down around 15% according to OPR. Since I'm not on any other sites I don't bother tracking how players do on anything else but Stars. Bond18 has a reputation for running good, whether it be with the ladies, in life itself or at the tables. Today, he ran particularly well taking down one big field MTT and coming second in another.

I was following both Nick and Tony's progress as I watched the NFL and the cricket on TV. Tony tho was on fire final-tabling the 2 MTT's and cashing a few others. The two top results was a 2nd (out of 1250 players) in an $11 rebuy which earned him over $3.5K and then he outlasted 500 players in a $22 rebuy tournament to win almost $6K. The win was no doubt more sweet for him as at one stage during the heads-up battle he faced a 5:1 chip deficit but managed to fight back and take it down.

A spectacular return on the buy-ins paid and even better when you consider I think he played just 9 tournaments on PokerStars and cashed 6 of them. Congrats Bond on a MASSIVE day!

PokerStars Turbo Takedown wrap-up

Thanks to the time difference, I got up just after 4am this morning ready for the 4:30 start of the PokerStars Turbo Takedown. Not surprisingly, I didn't sleep that well leading up to the event, part nervous energy, part body not used to going to bed at 9pm.

There was a couple of active players on my table early and I wasn't getting cards so I just took notes and paid attention to what was going on. When I did get cards there wasn't too much action, other than me re-raising with pocket queens and then re-raising a bet on the flop on a low board. I took down a raised pot with a bet on the flop just before the first break that gave me a stack of 3500 (started with 3000).

Checking out Official Poker Rankings site, I noted there were a number of good, successful players on my table. There was a lot of pre-flop raises with good but not great hands and I guess this is what you have to do with the turbo format of the tournament.

One third of the 30,000 starters were gone by the first break and I was hoping to make it in to the top 10,000 where the money started. Unfortunately I went card dead after the break and with the turbo format the blinds were quickly rising and my stack was dwindling. I was just looking for a hand or a spot to take a stand and was dealt ace ten of diamonds in the big blind. It folded round to the button and with the small blind sitting out he decided to make a move. It looked like a steal so I called. He turned over 4 5 off-suit, good call me. First two cards out were a 4 and a 5, groan ... but there were two diamonds. Next card out was a diamond ... but unfortunately it was a 4 to give me the ace high flush but him a full-house. So I departed in roughly 11,000th spot, just outside the money.

I got my money in good, what more can I do? A disappointingly short tournament for me, over in about 90 mins. Quick nap on the couch and then it was time for work.