The L.A. Poker Classic

Fresh off a win in Tunica, I was feeling pumped up and ready to attack the monster prize pool at the next World Poker Tour stop at Commerce Casino in Los Angeles.

I got in a day early to attend the inaugural Card Player/Bodog Player of the Year Awards, in which I was nominated in five out of the eight award categories. Well, Phil Ivey snagged three awards and Chip Reese deservedly picked up two, while I was lucky enough to win the People's Choice Award as the public's favorite player. That award meant a lot to me, it genuinely did.

The festivities ran pretty late, as I hung out with Phil Hellmuth drinking Dom Perignon till the wee hours of the morning. Unfortunately, that broke three of my cardinal rules for tournament preparation, but in light of the special nature of the evening, I decided to make an exception.

Those three rules are simple:

1. No alcohol

2. No socializing

3. No late nights

It's funny how all three of those rules often go hand in hand! Despite breaking my rules, I still believed I could get through the first day by focusing as best I could. It seemed to be working, as I was holding my own despite taking some pretty tough beats.

I was hovering at about even in chips, around $18,000 to $22,000, when the following hand came up:

The player in first position limped in for $200 and Blair Rodman made the minimum raise to $400. I called from the cutoff seat with the J 8, and both blinds and the first limper also called.

The flop looked like a good one for me: Q 4 2 giving me the third-nut flush. Both blinds checked to the limper, who bet $1,000. Blair folded, and I thought for a moment about whether it would be best to slow-play the hand or try to play a big pot on the flop.

After a very brief hesitation, I decided to make a feeler raise to $3,000. The small blind hesitated for a moment, and finally called. This was already more action than I cared for, but things got really hairy when the initial bettor decided to reraise another $5,000!

Man, oh man, I thought this was a good flop, but it was starting to look more and more like I needed to consider getting rid of the hand.

I didn't know the player who reraised, but it seemed pretty obvious to me anyway that he had a flush. The question I needed to ask myself was, how big?

I went into the tank for a minute or so before replaying the hand in my mind. What does the small blind have? Based on his reaction when he called, I was pretty sure that I had found out where the A was; however, what I didn't know for certain was whether he had another diamond to go with it!

If it was true that the small blind had the A, the first bettor obviously couldn't have the nut flush, but he could have a hand like the K 10.

If I called the $5,000 raise, that would leave me with $7,200, so if I decided to play my flush, the next dilemma I faced was whether or not to go all in right now to try to knock out the small blind, or to just call the bet and see what developed on the turn.

Once I finally made up my mind that I wasn't folding, I decided to just call, since this was a tournament situation in which you generally want to avoid going broke in marginal situations if at all possible.

The small blind also called the raise, which let me know one thing for sure: He certainly didn't have the nuts. The turn card was the 4, creating an entirely new set of problems. Now, I still couldn't beat an ace-high or king-high flush, and I also would be drawing dead against a player who had flopped a set.

Although I'd already invested $8,400 in this pot, I was not committed to putting in my last $7,200. That was yet one more reason for me to just call on the flop.

I anxiously awaited my opponents' actions, as both seemed a little snakebitten by the board pairing. Now it was either all-or-nothing time for me. I wasn't about to let the A draw to his flush for free, and if I was dead, there was no turning back. "I'm all in," I said.

The small blind literally beat me into the pot! Oops, it looked like I had this hand read completely wrong. The other player folded his hand, and claimed to have flopped a 9-high flush.

So, what did the small blind have? The A 3! Sweet. I actually did read the hand perfectly, and was in excellent shape to double up. When the river brought the 10, I was an instant contender, and was feeling good about my hand-reading skills despite the late night with Hellmuth and Dom!

Unfortunately, I think the Dom caught up to me. I took a few bad beats to get low on chips, but then made a crucial mistake with A-Q to lose my last $9,500. It was a rookie mistake that I don't think I would have made had I followed my cardinal rules. It's been a long time since I slipped up like that, so rather than beat myself up about it, I'm just going to chalk it up to being human and move on.

You can read Daniel's blog and play online with him at his website, https://www.fullcontactpoker.com/.