My first final table of the 2009 WSOP!
I am pretty excited because I have come out of the gate at the WSOP pretty fast here. I have played 5 events so far and cashed twice already with one final table under my belt. We started the $10K Championship Omaha 8 or better on Sunday night. It was my first event back after a week off in LA to hang with my kids. I love Omaha 8 or better tournaments and probably have my best record at the WSOP in the 8 or better disciplines. So I always look forward in particular to the $10K Championship 8 or better events. I already came in 30th of 900+ in the $1500 Omaha 8 or better so I felt like my game was in stroke before heading into this event. I started at an excellent table on day 1 meaning I felt that the play overall was quite weak. That is always a good thing! I got off to a banging start, building my 30K starting stack to close to 60K in the first 4 levels. But during the last two levels of the night I only had one single playable hand so I ended the day right around average at just under 40K.
When I came in to start Day 2 I dipped down to 8K almost immediately. That is pretty bad considering we started with 30K! At that point I told Joe that we would probably be seeing The Hangover that afternoon. I have been dying to see that movie for sure. Right as I got down so low Bryan Spadaro from the PPA stopped by my table to see how I was doing. Right as he did that I doubled up! Yay! That was key. Right after the double up I got moved to a terrible table with Greg Jamison and Phil Ivey just to name two of the tough players. Pretty much everyone at the table was a great player and the table was super snug. No one was playing a hand and no one was giving a single chip away. I managed to keep my stack around average until the table broke and I got drawn to a much more action table way towards the end of the night. I had built my stack up over 300K a this point, which was about double chip average. The action table went fine for me. I actually didn’t get involved too much and survived with average chips when we redrew to 18 players as the night was winding down. 18 players meant cashing…never a bad thing. But almost on the last hand of the night, I went up against Tom Koval’s A299 vs. my AA28. He raised my BB from under the gun and I flat called in the big blind. I checked raised him on a board of J85 one diamond. The 3 of diamonds hit the turn and I bet and he raised with the diamond draw that he had picked up. A 9 hit on the river and I only got a quarter of the pot. That pot killed me and I went down to 133K to end the night with 17 players left. I was about half chip average at that point. The good news is that so were 5 other people because John Monette had amassed about 1.5m in chips so average was super skewed.
Start of Day 3 action. That's Daniel Negreanu in the foreground.
Going into Day 3, I didn’t hold out much hope since I was so short stacked. I never seemed to be able to win two hands back to back. I would win my all in…once hitting a 2 outer to do that when I need exactly a King to hit on the river to survive when I had KK in my hand. But I was also having players hit 2 and 3 outers to get half or all of the pot from me on that key second hand after my all-in double to get my stack healthy. This meant that I was always hovering in the 2 big bet to 4 big bet range. That is tough going because it means any hand you enter you are sure to be going all in on. So you are always in danger…exhausting for sure!
Somehow, someway, I managed to win all my key all-ins…three of which were against Daniel Alaei who was the eventual winner of the event. I must say, every time I play with him, whatever the game, I am always super impressed. He is such a good player it is sick. I scummed around to the final table with my super short stack just because I was winning when I got all my chips in. I never won the next hand but the key ones always went my way.
Happy to have made the final table with my short stack!
The final table was full of sick, great Omaha players. Greg Jamison who came in second in the event last year, Danny Alaei, John Monette who played absolutely fantastic, Tom Koval and Ben Boyd…two guys I had never seen before but both played impressively great O8, Yequi Zhu who always threatens in the 8 or betters and Daniel Negreanu and Scott Clements (who has two Omaha bracelets).
Sitting in the gallery right before the final table starts! That's my Joe next to me 
When we started playing the final table I was super short stacked. But I doubled up right away with Jacks full vs. Scott Clements and thought for a moment that things might actually be looking up for me.
At the final table! A brief but happy stay
Alas, I got quartered on a key hand where Greg Jamison and I split the low side and Scott Clements got the high side. I raised in first position with A268. Greg reraised from 3rd position with A26K and Scott Clements called with T975 clubs and spades. The board came J85 two clubs. Scott bet out. I raised, Greg called and Scott called. The turn brought the low and I went all in. Greg called all in and Scott called. At that point I had three quarters of the pot! The river brought a club and I ended up with a quarter. Had Greg successfully raised Scott out of the pot, as he tried to do, I would have gotten 3/4 of the pot and been on my way back up. Oh well. Instead I was crippled and ended up going all in with A2KQ and geting knocked out by Greg with the low and John with the high when the board counterfeited my low with a deuce on the flop. A pair of deuces doesn’t do you much good in Omaha 8!
In the end I was super happy with 8th because I truly felt like it was a miracle I ever even survived to make the final table. I am usually so bummed when I get so close and don’t convert but having nursed the super short stack all day on day 3 I couldn’t even believe I managed to cash for nearly $60K. It all seemed like upside to me after I hit the two outer King to survive earlier in the day! I am a total luckbox I guess
I am excited to play 8 or better again tomorrow in the 5pm event: $2500 half Omaha 8 or better/half stud 8 or better. I came in third in this event two years ago…I would love at least that this year 
Nice work, Annie! I hope to be blogging about my first ever final table after the WSOP Academy Main Event Primer in a couple weeks! I can’t wait for that!
p.s. I just saw Hangover tonight and it was f-ing amazing!
Annie, congrats on your success! I was wondering if you could clarify what happened before the final table between you and Daniel N. There are a lot of rumors around that you lobbied for him to receive a penalty for excessive celebration after he doubled up with his short stack. Can you speak to this? My hope is that you two are on good terms, because you’re both great! Thanks!
Sounds like you were beaten unfairly by Rivers again! (Okay, I’m sorry, but I’m not feeling well and the quality of my jokes goes down as my temperature goes up.)
Sounds like you are off to a great start!!
Annie, keep up the good work. You are amazing.
Congrats, Annie! So cool…
Annie, You give such great, detailed updates! I really enjoy reading your blog. I have been following you daily on Twitter, and am living the whole WSOP event vicariously thru you. More continued good luck! P.S. You talk about food a lot – - it’s so funny!!
Katie
Annie, It is really wonderful that you take the time to Twitter and Blog…I love reading them. I am a novice player and a big fan…good luck in the rest of the Tournament…it is so exciting as more and more women get to final tables…go girl…wishing you many bracelets this year!
Thanks for the great report. I only get to play real games a couple times a year and Tunica rarely has an Omaha game I can afford to play, so reading your blog is my outlet. Keep the tips coming…
Wow–WSOP already–time flies—-hope you do well this year—I do not have Cable anymore, so I will see how my faviorte people are doing on the computer. good luck.
Again —good luck on this year WSOP.
AD and DN fan…That rumor was started by a twitter update by Daniel in which he reported that someone had reported him for excessive celebration and it could only be one person. Many people assumed that person was me. While I do believe that DN was violating the rule, I did not report him. He was not even at my table at that time.
hi here’s some trump dirt i dug up. enjoy!
http://thedirty.com/2008/03/18/trump/
Annie you are all over the place these days. Congrats on the WSOP! I hope you find some time to relax while you’re in the Bahamas for the Sports Legends Challenge!
Would you let it go already?? For Pete’s sake grow up and move on.
Daniel Negreanu is in fact my favorite poker player. I just love how he can telling the other gamers cards
It’s so amusing to observe the faces of his opponents, when he tells them their precise hand.