Joined: Mar '11
Location: United States
Age: 42 (M)
Posts: 7
So im 28 years old now and enrolled in college full time, leaving me very little free time to play poker like i was able to in my early 20's. However, for about 3 years from ages 23-26 years old i was playing online poker and at my local card rooms about 3-4 days a week. I realized quickly that i had progressed in my knowledge of the game and ability to compute odds much faster than anticipated.
Soon i was making my sole income off of poker earnings. Between the 3 local poker clubs i was a regular at, in addition to online earnings(this was back in 2006 and i was playing at PartyPoker) I was making around 1400$ a week income. Would that make me a pro? I wouldnt consider myself a true professional even though it was how i earned a living for awhile. Lets just say im an average Joe who happened to discover he had a little talent.
One morning I wake up very early, around 5am. I cant fall back asleep so i decide to play some .50-1.00 NL ring games. I also join a promotional freeroll called The St.Petersburg Open Freeroll. The prize pool consisted of one, 5,000$ dollar prize package to play in The St.Petersburg Open held in Russia. First place won the package and 2nd place got nothing. It was winner take all. I play ridiculously large freerolls all the time and was actually paying little attention to it because my focus was directed at the multiple ring games i had open. 6,438 people entered the freeroll and after one hour the field was cut in half. During the first 2 1/2 hours of play i had amassed around 73,000 chips and was in the top 15. I decided to close my ring games and focus my attention to the freeroll.
Next thing i know were about 5 1/2 hours deep and i have 280,000 chips sitting in 4th place with less than 200 people left! At this point im still thinking that theres little chance of winning, a lot of s**t happens in a donk fest freeroll with 200 players remaining. Another 2 hours go by and i was quietly building my stack to over a million chips. Once we get down to 30 players i have around 1.2 million chips and get locked up in a huge hand with a player who has around 500k worth of chips. I have QQ preflop and flop is 10QA RAINBOW. Im trying to tell myself that this ahole prob called my 6x the blind raise with KJ and im beat, but the dark side takes hold of me and i bet the pot. He called and long story short.....he had KJ, i lost the hand and 500k to boot.
I start tightening up and am probably tilting at this point but regardless, i am surviving. My stack is at 670k and theres only 12 players left! Im in 11th place! yikes! After exercising extreme patience and folding some hands that i would normally love to raise with I weaseled my way into the final table. 9 players left out of 6,438. Holy s**t. Unfortunately my stack is still reeling from the half a million chip hit i took with the set of queens hours ago. It felt like i missed a field goal in a football game, just having a understanding of poker enough to know that the one blotched play made earlier is coming back to haunt me, not unlike missing a field goal in a football game in the 3rd quarter and losing by 2 points. It fuckin sucks d**k......but i digress.
Everyone at the final table has a million chips or more except for me, the leader having around 8 million. I begin catching some very nice flops on my blinds (players were letting me limp? at a final table? it was their fault), and caught a ace high flush and doubled up through way of the chip leader. He had made a J high flush and called my all in on the river. Either way after about an hour of big pots and aggressive betting from everyone, we are down to 2 players. I was one of them. I had a 2 million chip lead. The very first hand of heads up play Im dealt 2d-Ad. My opponent is dealt Ah-10c. Flop comes Jh-7d-Qd. I bet 220k just throwing bets out at this point to steal. He calls. Turn is Kd. I made the nut flush, and my opponent just hit Broadway. I bet 550k, a rather small bet knowing my opponent has a propensity to re raise big if he has a marginal hand. He re raises to 840k, I figure at this point that he has trips a straight or a lower flush because that raise was large even for his terrible standards. His range of possible hands based upon his betting pattern indicated that he had a big hand, or so he thought. I know this isnt the correct play, but i just FELT like i had him, and that i knew he would call any size bet. I pushed all in around 11 million, he called immediately. It was over. In one hand of heads up play it was all over. The prize package and the trip through Europe to Russia was mine! 2,500$ Buy In, Hotel for a week, Airfare, and 1000$ cash for travel was all mine!
FOOT NOTE: I placed 11th out of 280 players at the St.Petersburg Open in Russia and cashed for 3,550$ !!!!! My name is Thomas Greaux, you can look up the results if you would like to fact check.
Joined: Feb '08
Location: Netherlands
Age: 52 (M)
Posts: 818
Great Job qualifing and doing well live as well I just asked for some more live-poker adventures and there's one. Was this the last St.Petersburg open played? or 3 years ago?
Joined: Jan '11
Location: United States
Age: 42 (M)
Posts: 852
I completely agree Island!Best Post Ever. I'm gonna have one like this soon. I'd love for players from this forum to become a force to be reckoned with! Where novice players come for advice because they know that there are always good players with proof to back it, that can give them advice and help improve their game! A place to bounce poker ideas and strategies off of other respected players! Great Great Post GL @ the tables Mobster's!
Joined: Oct '09
Location: United Kingdom
Age: 57 (M)
Posts: 667
Fantastic post. As has been said nice to meet someone who can compose a letter correctly. i also agree with hoodi, this is a great place to gain ideas and listen to good tells. I hope that there are more posted soon. Being relatively new to poker, and to honest not very good, I hope that more stories are posted that make me feel good and more importantly - GIVE ME HOPE. GL all at the tables - unless I meet you heads up at the final table of the ME on Full Tilt, then no offence I hope you come 2nd......................
Joined: Apr '09
Location: Australia
Age: 40 (M)
Posts: 6483
Posted by Davoodoo:
Second place in a freeroll that large is suicidal, how can someone simply take it ?
Funnily enough - a couple times I've not entered games that were large field simply because they paid winner takes all - I've thought about it on a few occasions and decided I would tilt far to hard from taking 2nd place.
Joined: Nov '09
Location: Canada
Age: 55 (M)
Posts: 2387
Wow! Very nice story! Congratulations on an excellent run and for taking the time to share it with us. Obviously you have some good poker skills and I hope you will join us in the Bankrollmob poker forum and participate in the discussions here.
Joined: Feb '11
Location: Canada
Age: 57 (M)
Posts: 753
This has got to be the best poker thread I have read here. WTG, on your great play. Hope to see more of these winning poker stories from you. Love a good poker story, especially when it involves a trip to some out of the way place. You are just the kind of person that needs to be playing in Poker Stars "Big Game". Have you ever thought of this? No, then check it out. Playing the pro's on national TV would be exciting wouldn't it. Best of luck in your poker.
Joined: Mar '11
Location: Germany
Age: 55 (M)
Posts: 1242
Thanks for this great story. I loved to read it. I think this is a kind of story, every online (amateur) poker player is dreaming of (including myself )
Joined: Feb '11
Location: Philippines
Age: 43 (M)
Posts: 228
Posted by MIGO14: Thanks for this great story. I loved to read it. I think this is a kind of story, every online (amateur) poker player is dreaming of (including myself )
yeah...hopefully, one of us mobsters could share a nice little story like this in the future.this is definitely inspirational.thanks for sharing
Joined: Nov '10
Location: Serbia
Age: 37 (M)
Posts: 2087
This is longest post that I have read from first to last letter! That was quite achievement and you should be proud! I see you are good player and we need good players on forum so please stay with us Good luck in your poker career!
P.S. I also dont play those winner takes all large fields. I would kill myself for second finish
Posted by greaux: I placed 11th out of 280 players at the St.Petersburg Open in Russia and cashed for 3,550$ !!!!!
Man, I was there...A lot of things changed in Russia since then...In fact, the Golden Garden Casino where the tourney was held back in 2006 doesn't operate anymore. Now you can play live poker only in a special district in the south of Russia...
