No One Remembers 19th Place

Wow, what a great event! It was an honor and a pleasure to play on the WPBT circuit and face opponents with some actual skill. Been playing too much at the local casinos with TV-trained yahoos who think calling 2 all-ins with Pocket Dueces is a good idea. So that's what it feels like to steal the blinds and have re-raises respected!

I started off playing somewhat aggressive, and it seemed to work out for me. Along the way, I got bullied around by BadBlood, I got Hammer'd by Helixx, and I got up as far as 2nd place (just behind HDouble) with 23 players left. I shoulda taken a screen shot cause T9000 was the best I would get to... I made a few too many loose calls and then blew another 2000 on a busted bluff attempt. And then this:

PokerStars Game #1580251159: Tournament #7037849, Hold'em No Limit - Level VIII (200/400) - 2005/04/24 - 20:51:32 (ET)
Table '7037849 10' Seat #8 is the button
Seat 1: jerge88 (5325 in chips)
Seat 2: hdouble (13807 in chips)
Seat 4: skitchorama (6786 in chips)
Seat 5: badblood44 (14587 in chips)
Seat 8: phillsievers (6818 in chips)
Seat 9: peacecorn (3071 in chips)
*** HOLE CARDS ***
Dealt to skitchorama [Kh Ks]
hdouble: folds
skitchorama: raises 1600 to 2000
badblood44: folds
phillsievers: calls 2000
peacecorn: folds
jerge88: folds
*** FLOP *** [9c Qc Qd]
skitchorama: bets 2400
phillsievers: raises 2393 to 4793 and is all-in
skitchorama: calls 2361 and is all-in
skitchorama said, "uh oh"
hdouble said, "oof"
badblood44 said, "wow"
*** TURN *** [9c Qc Qd] [4s]
heL1xx [observer] said, "wow"
spm1024 [observer] said, "wow momma"
heL1xx [observer] said, "wow"
homersolo [observer] said, "wow"
*** RIVER *** [9c Qc Qd 4s] [Qs]
*** SHOW DOWN ***
skitchorama: shows [Kh Ks] (a full house, Queens full of Kings)
phillsievers: shows [Ah Ad] (a full house, Queens full of Aces)
phillsievers said, "gg man, ul timing"
Donegal [observer] said, "yyesh"
phillsievers collected 14272 from pot

Those frickin' Cowboys ALWAYS get me into trouble late into major tournaments. Why can't I ever follow my own damn rule about them??? What's ironic is that when he raised, my pointer was hovering over the fold button and I almost clicked... but I considered the fact he could be bluffing, that if he had a Queen he would probably slowplay it. I was right - he didn't have a Queen. At least Phil went on to put those chips to good use!

Despite my double-digit finish, it was quite a confidence booster for me to know that I can hang in there with the best of 'em.

Awesome tournament - when's the next one?