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The action at the final table started out fast and furious, with three players being knockedout on the first two hands. The hand that eliminated two players was dramatic to say the least.The short stack player went in ahead with QQ, another player with about a 30k stack had QJ offsuite, and the big stack player who I previously mentioned as being a strong player had 55. QQwas looking to triple up until a five spiked to river and we were down to seven players that quickly.The player with the 55 was sitting directly to my right as he had been all night, but I consideredmyself lucky throughout the final table because he was very passive in the small blind. Mosttimes when the action was folded around to him, he folded to me in the big blind giving up the pot,which was very important for me. Most of my raises were getting respect and I had built my stackto around $70k with six people left, without showing down many hands at all.

An important hand came up with six people left. A short-stacked player had moved all infor $18k under the gun. I was in the big blind with Q7 of clubs, and the blinds at this point were$4k-$8k with a $1k ante. Previously, short-stacked players had moved in and inexperiencedplayers with big stacks folded their blinds without even thinking about the situation. Although Iknew I was beat, I figured I was in perfect position to call the extra $10k. There was already $18kin the pot and it only cost me another $10k out of my $70k stack. He had A10, which was about a3/2 favorite, and when a Q hit the river knew I was in good position to win. The most importanthand of the tournament occurred when we were four handed. The blinds were $6k-$12k with a$2k anti, and I opened from the button for $36k with 44. At the start of the hand, I had $125k, thesmall blind had $100k, the big blind $75k, and the player to my immediate right had $80k. The

player in the big blind who was clearly a novice player pushed all in as soon as the action got tohim and I felt a little sick to my stomach. He had already shown down AA twice, KK, JJ, and QQand that was just at the final table. He had made a few severe mistakes along the way, however,which made it clear he was a beginning player. I asked him how much more it was to call and thedealer said it was $40k. He had a grin on his face and I knew what it meant; he had anothermonster. My first mistake was not recognizing his chip stack before I raised, because if I had Iwould not have put myself in such a tough situation. I felt like if he did have a hand like AK, then Iwould be racing for a huge pot, which would put me in an amazing situation to win thetournament, and if he had a big pair and I lost I would still have $50k to work with which wasn'ttoo awful. I made the call and to my disgust, he turned over KK. I could not believe he hadanother big pair, but that is poker. I went from complete disgust to utter joy when I saw that thedoor card was a four. The flop was QJ4 and I had taken the lead. The turn brought a ten, whichgave him an extra eight outs, and with one card to come, I was trying to dodge two kings, four

aces, and four nines. The river was a blank and we were down to three people.I now had $200k in chips, another player had $100k, and the player who I had been

playing with all night was the low stack with $80k. The tournament director announced that wewould now be playing with $10k-$20k blinds and a $3k anti. That meant that it would cost each ofus $33k every three hands, and there were only about $400k chips in play between the three ofus. We decided to stop to clock and talk about a deal. I normally am opposed to deals, but therewere a few factors that made me want to chop in this situation. For one, it was 2:30 AM and I hada two and a half hour drive ahead of me that night. The main reason, however, was the structureof the tournament. I felt like we were at the point where it was a crapshoot, and being that I wasin the best chip position, I thought making a deal would be the smartest move on my part. Iclearly was not thinking as well as I should have been, and because of that, I did not make a verysmart deal for myself. I took into consideration the fact that I had sucked out to knock the playerout in 4th, and felt like I should not be greedy, especially because I was so lucky to have hit the 4.

I have not had a tremendous amount of live final table experience, so I used this experience tolearn from my mistakes. I offered both of the players $10k, which would leave me with the other$14k. In retrospect, I should have taken $15k, but overall it was a solid payday for a $160 buy intournament. We all agreed, and I drove home with a lot of cash in my pockets and a big smile onmy face.

In my opinion, experience is the best way to get better at poker. The hundreds of rebuytournaments that I have played online played a huge role in winning this tournament. Finding astyle that makes you comfortable and brings good results is key to becoming a successful player.I hope this has given you some incite to how I go about playing rebuy tournaments, and that ithelps to bring all of you success in the future.

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