Party Poker Million Dollar Guaranteed Tournament, and DADI III

I'm playing in the party million dollar guaranteed tournament right now. This is the 7th hand and I haven't played anything yet. Wish me luck and I'll keep this updated here with my results.

***************************************************

Well, I managed to cash in the million dollar guaranteed tournament on party today. I came in 203rd place out of 1820 entrants, for a nice payout of $764.40:




Given that this is my first attempt in any tournament anywhere NEAR this large from a buyin perspective, I am really thrilled with the result. In the end, I got busted with A5o and a short stack, when it was folded around to me on the button, so I had a very good shot of having the best hand at that point. Unfortunately, after much deliberation, the small blind called my allin bet and flipped over AQ, and I was done. It wouldn't bother me so much, but about 20 or 30 hands earlier, I had had about three times as many chips as I had when I went out, and was in the top 25% or so of the remaining players. Nonetheless, while I certainly didn't play every single hand optimally, there isn't any hand that I am upset or disappointed about as I think back about it. I am just really thrilled to have (1) not gone out early, (2) not gotten sucked out on in super annoying fashion and (3) to have actually cashed. My balance at party now rockets up to an all-time high, and I'm feeling very confident heading into the rest of my poker play this weekend. Special thanks to V who railbirded me and chatted on the IM during the tourney, in addition to E who sat with me for most of the tournament and provided advice as well. It was fun and I look forward to playing in this tournament again soon (hopefully!).

***************************************************

By the way, just a few quick words about the latest DADI event this past Friday evening. It was a heads-up matchup, and extra special thanks go out to Jordan from HighonPoker and TripJax for setting the whole thing up. I thought the format of the tournament was super fun. I played a great opening matchup against Byron, who held his own with me and would not give up despite my winning 72 out of 107 hands that we played in our matchup, and I finally got past him by slow playing KK and inducing a move-in in the way that only I can. As Byron and I had played for quite a long time, we got almost no break before the second-round matcups began. My second matchup was with someone I did not recognize, and he was a bit more aggressive and harder to deal with than Byron, though I still ended up winning more hands than he did as I once again managed to establish my table image after several hands as being the guy who dictates the pace of the heads-up matchup. So, after about 20 hands, when my K9 hit a flop of K62 rainbow, I moved in and got called by....K7. But was I elated to be moving on? Nope, no when the frucking 7 came on the turn, and I was out after inducing ANOTHER all-in move when I again had the best hand. Oh well, so I was out fairly quick in the end in the DADI, but I thoroughly enjoyed the heads-up structure of the tournament, and I hope we continue to do more of these things in the future.