When I decided last December to learn a thing or two about MTTs, I never envisaged the path that that decision would ultimately lead me to take. I had intended merely to put up a worthy effort defending my $10,000 buy-in at PCA, but in the end I became engulfed in the frustrations and excitement of the MTT world.
It all started of course with my $45,600 AUD score at APPT Sydney, a result which for me was significant not so much because of the money but rather because it reminded me just how exciting poker can be. The sense of excitement that I had felt when I made my first successful bluff had long given way to a monotonous and sometimes tedious grind on the online cash tables. In many ways that result and MTTs in general came just at the right time for me; they rejuvenated my desire for the game and gave me the impetus to keep improving.
When I arrived at PCA however I would be lying if I said I had prepared myself well for the event. Though I had meant to watch a lot of videos and whatnot, I couldn’t shake the desire to get my cash game graph for the year to $100,000. So in the end my preparation was shaky at best, consisting only of watching a few videos on the plane to the Bahamas (SEABEAST’s videos in particular), reading some of Bond18’s articles, and playing a few weeks of the Sunday majors beforehand and learning from my mistakes. Somehow though, despite my lack of preparation, I managed to cash at PCA which was a hugely satisfying result for me. It felt as though the validity of my preparation and even the happiness of my holiday depended on it, and though I know it sounds ridiculous I was actually more pleased with this cash than my APPT Sydney result.
When I got back to Sydney I decided to head down to Melbourne early and play a relatively full schedule at the Aussie Millions. I hadn’t intended to play the Main Event initially but flush with my newfound PCA funds I decided to have another once-in-a-lifetime crack at a million dollars. Though that never eventuated and the whole trip in fact turned out to be a disastrous decision for my bankroll, I definitely do not regret going as overall it was definitely a worthwhile experience.
When I came back, as if to make me feel better for my cold run down in Melbourne, Full Tilt decided to boomswitch me and I went on to win three tournaments in the space of a week, an overall profit of close to $20,000. Then, just one week later, I hit the Holy Grail – a $50,000 score in a PokerStars major. I remember when I used to try to satellite into the Party weekly tournament and balk at the thought of winning $60,000 for first. What would someone do with all that money!?!? It had always been my dream to win one of those ridiculous life-changing scores and all of a sudden completely out of the blue I had done it.
Unfortunately, with my summer holidays ending in two weeks so too must my foray into tournaments. I have one more Monday (i.e. Sunday in the US) of Sunday majors available to me but I decided to go out with a bang and finish up today since today marked the final day of the FTOPS series as well as the main day of the PokerStars 25 Billion Bash promotion; this meant huge fields across the board for the Sunday majors as well as two huge $2.5 million guaranteed marquee tournaments - the FTOPS Main Event and the PokerStars Sunday Million. I didn’t have too much success today, cashing only three times and going relatively deep only in one, but that’s life I guess.
Anyway, as of tomorrow, I’m back to being a full time cash player. It’s probably a good thing to be honest as my cash game has probably suffered these past few months as I’m only up about $1000 in cash games this year (though dropping several buy-ins at 10/20 has had a lot to do with that). The time also feels right as I’m actually wanting to play cash games again, something which could not have been said at the start of this year. In fact I think I was partially drawn to MTTs not so much because MTTs were good but rather because after playing cash games full time in December I had become so taxed that I really needed a break and the simplicity of MTTs offered me that.
Anyway, it’s definitely been a fun and worthwhile journey and I’m glad that I decided to take it. I never dreamed that I would have as much success as I did, and to top it off I got to travel across the world and have an awesome time while doing it.
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