I had a long weekend full of action, all at pokerstars. I played a lot of tournaments and cash games, all the way up to $100-200, combined >10k hands. The result is a little on the negative side, about 5k, mostly to some losses at the $30/60 where I lost 6k in one night, getting rivered by one-, two- or three outers minimum 25 times in large pots. In the big game I had mixed results, I won in 2-3 sessions and lost in 2-3, all together about even. At the best moment I was up $6400 but was greedy (10k was my goal) and gave it all back, lol.

But, there was the $500,000 guaranteed tournament for $500+30 on sunday which I had planned to play and finding no time to play any satellite for it I bought in directly. There were about 1,300 players registered and a whooping $148,000 to the winner with 135 spots paid.

I started slowly and calm into that tourney, playing not many hands. I got three good hands in a row once and managed to bring my stack to double-average with about 900 players left when I first looked at the current ranking. Online poker pro "TheBeat" was leading and I opened my browser to make same research on him. I found a interesting interview with him.

Even at his high level, Pete still struggles against certain opponents. "I have a problem playing very aggressive people. I don’t enjoy playing gank, because he's more aggressive than I am, and I'm pretty aggressive. He could be playing any two cards, and he's willing to put his tournament on the line at any time. These very aggressive players like gank, sdouble, and P0ker H0, I don't like to be at the table with them because something bad can happen. When you know somebody's aggressive, he makes you make loose calls against him. You end up playing a little more stupid." Some of his most respected opponents on PokerStars are sandow, mackerel t, and RiverLoser.

His style in general? He plays very aggressively, making big bets often, but he's never afraid to throw away a losing hand. "I can get off a bluff even though I have half my chips in the pot already," he told me. "I raise a lot preflop, but if someone comes over the top when I don't have a big hand, I'll throw it away. I just like to put myself in position to make a run to the final table. I don’t care if I have chips or I don't have chips, because I think I can win it from any spot. I'm not gambling like some others are. Most of the time, when I’m winning a tournament, I'm coming from the middle of the pack."

I managed to keep my stack above or at least on average chip count and I slided into the money without any problems. When getting near the money the game got to raise-take-it or raise-reraise-fold style and we saw not many flops. Due to the high blinds my stack was getting smaller and smaller and I was nearly down to half the average when I decided to make an move. I picked my spot, a player named "DominatorSMD" on whom I believed to found a small tell regarding his betting speed and his hand strenght. Soon a situation arose where I was in middle position holding A6s and he was UTG and raissing 3 times the BB. I had about 15k left and moved in without hestitation having this figured out earlier. All folded to him and he called, having me covered by 8k. He showed QQ. Upps, so much for my sure tells. Flop was safe for him but the turn brought an ace and when the river was a blank also I doubled up. He did not came over it and was trying to trashtalk me for about 30 minutes (he survived and even came back to 60k before finally getting eliminated in 37th spot).

I knewed feared that I would get action on my next raise or reraise so I waited for a good hand which not came. Finally I got moved, holding exactly average chips.

Wow, my new table had TheBeat in seat #1, sdouble in seat #4, myself in seat #5 and two more well know leaderboard top10% players. I thought about my options at light speed and decided to take control of the action in the first possible situation (about 100 players left). Right the first hand I got A6o. It was folded to TheBeat in UTG +1 and he promply opened the pot for a standard raise. Fold, fold and the sdouble called! It was on me. I thought about what I had read earlier about TheBeat and decided to to take control right here. I thought sdouble is 99% on a weak drawing hand like 67s as being the super-agressive player that he is he would even raise with AA, knowing that he would get action from any decent hand anyway. So, I shoved in, about 25k into a 10k pot at that time. It took forever to complete the hand, everybody was already stalling (or thinking :) and my hands got weat while waiting. Finally they all folded (hand must have taken 5 minutes at least). Phewww.

This A6 was the best hand I got for the rest of the tournament, except one which made me leaving the tourney. No pairs except 22, no big aces, no two paints with position, nothing. In 28th spot I had a less-than-half the average stack and moved in on in MP with A7s but got called from the BB with AQ. The flop of AQ2 ended all my dreams and when no runner-runner 7's came I busted out in 28th getting paid about $2,200. Not bad but it still hurted me, I wished to made the final table and get 3rd or better (who not).

It was 4:30a.m. and I had to leave at 5 for my job so I then carried $2000 to the $100-200 taking a shot there which ended as a loose canon when I lost A9 against A8 with a A on flop and 8 on the river and 77 against 86 with a six on flop and turn. Clever players like me won't die easy, lol.