Rakeback Planet

Good start to 2009…

Hello. I’m back after the long New Year’s celebration, hope everyone had a good and safe one. So I haven’t played live since Christmas and decided to head over to the casino last night for my first tournament of 2009. I entered into the $220 buy-in Hold’em/Omaha-Hi game last night which also allows you two $200 rebuy’s anytime during the first hour of play each one giving you 1000 chips. I guess people are still getting back on track with their lives after the holidays so the tourney wasn’t full. When final registration closed there were 44 of us competing against each other. A friend of mine came along with me to play and when we drew the seat order cards we ended up sitting right next to each other which paid off for me right away. As soon as we sat down we started a conversation while an Omaha hand was being dealt out and for some reason I said I was going to get Quad J’s this hand on the flop. After looking at my cards what do you know? I was holding AJ of diamonds and QJ of spades, so pretty nice starting hand in Omaha. Just because of the conversation that just took place I raised pot, the guy after me re-raised pot, player after him went all-in, my friend went all-in and of course I called since I figured I have pot-odds even if anyone has a higher pair plus I have 2 high flush draws. We all had 1000 in chips, 4 ppl in the game and I flopped the nut Diamond flush right away. So after the 1st hand I had a bit over 4000 and never stopped from then on. Must admit I got dealt pretty good cards when I needed them and was in position. Recall one moment where I had AA and my opponent ended up having KK. I raised, he re-raised and I pushed all-in which he called and ended up loosing after I hit a set of Aces on the flop. That brought me up to be one of the chip leaders mid-way through the tourney. At the final table I knocked out 2 more people one of them being my buddie that came with me. With 3 of us left and me sitting on the button I had KK and raised and my friend went all in with 66′s. After knocking him out we played heads up for about 10 more minutes but our stacks were practically identical and we agreed for a split of $6300 each. So pretty happy about starting the new year on the right track and taking down my first tournament of 2009.