2004 Ultimatebet.com Poker Classic in Aruba

Recently, my new wife, Andra, and I packed our bags and traveled to sunny Aruba for a well-deserved vacation – and, of course, a poker tournament, the 2004 Ultimatebet.com Poker Classic. Ultimatebet.com put on a fantastic tournament at the luxurious Radisson Hotel and Casino. Many of the top players were in attendance, and even Ben Affleck flew in for the event.

The field consisted of 647 players, most of whom won their way in through online satellites, and for many, this was their first big live tournament. My strategy going into the first day of the tournament was to try to avoid playing big pots or making big gambles early on. Since the field was so inexperienced, I believed that by keeping the pots small, I would reduce the chances of busting out early and would maximize my chances of getting deep into the tournament, where my tournament experience would become an even bigger factor.

Thomas Keller in Aruba

I executed my plan perfectly the first day and built my 12K in starting chips up to 38K without ever going all in. The only big pot I played all day was when the blinds were $400-$800, and I had queens and raised it to $2,200 from first position. Everyone folded to the button, who quickly went all in for about $14,500 total. I had him covered, so if I were to call the additional $12,300 and lose, I would be left with about 5K. The way he quickly went all in from the button, not even considering just calling or raising a smaller amount, really made me believe he was trying to win the pot right there and did not want me to call. At the same time, he was a fairly tight, reasonable player, so I figured he did have a premium hand – probably A-K or a big pair. I also had been raising a ton preflop, so I had a loose, aggressive image, which would likely cause him to move in on me with weaker hands than if I had never raised a pot all day. My read was that he did not have aces or kings, from his immediate all-in move, and probably had A-K, a solid hand with which to move in, but one that is likely to be, at best, a coin flip if I were to call. With the pot laying about 1.5-to-1, I called with most of my stack, hoping he would turn over jacks or tens and I would have him dominated. He flipped over A-K, and we had a classic coin-flip situation, which I was fortunate to win, increasing my stack to more than 30K for the first time all day. I proceeded to win some more small pots to end the day at 38K.

My strategy for the next day was quite a bit different. The blinds were starting at $500-$1,000 with $100 antes, so even my above-average stack of 38K was only 30-40 times the big blind, which is not a lot of chips to work with. With about 270 players left and the top 200 making the money, I figured that play would be pretty tight until we got down to 200 players, as most of them had never cashed in a big tournament before and a lot of them had never won anything close to the $7,000 in prize money for finishing in 200th place. So, I figured I could play aggressively and steal the blinds a lot, especially from people I had covered but who had enough chips to last a few levels until we got down to 200 players.

However, I was not really able to execute this strategy well, since I was seated to the right of a big, aggressive stack, and players were busting out like they were late to a sunken treasure scuba dive. To the amazement of everyone, we got down to 200 players in less than two hours. Once everyone was in the money, players busted out at an even faster rate. We lost another 100 players in about an hour. Getting into the money must have been such a huge accomplishment for most of these players that they were ready to gamble with almost anything just to get out of the tournament and start partying, or get lucky and build up a big stack of chips to keep gambling with. When the field is playing as aggressively as they were at this stage, it is difficult to play any other way than to wait for big hands, get your money in with them, and hope they hold up.

I was fortunate to get aces and bust two opponents (we got all the money in preflop three-way), and I built my stack up to 67K. However, the next hand, I ran my A-9 into A-4 and my opponent hit trip fours to double up against me. The very next hand, I doubled the same opponent up again when his tens held up over my nines. (He didn't have enough chips for me to get away from the hand.) After this, I was pretty short-stacked, but managed to steal some pots preflop to build my stack back up to almost 60K when the following hand came up:

The blinds were $1,500-$3,000 with $300 antes, and one of the bigger stacks than mine raised from early position, making it $8,000 to go. I looked down to see two red queens, and made it $24,000 to go. I figured that including the blinds, antes, and $8,000 raise, there was about $15,500 already out there. This was 25 percent of my stack, and I would be very happy to win that without seeing a flop. Also, if I just called, I would let the big blind into the pot cheaply if he wanted to call $5,000 more. I also would be letting the early-position raiser see a free flop with any ace or king. This would put me in a tough spot if he bet into me on an A-X-X or K-X-X flop. Everyone folded back to the original raiser, who hesitated for a few seconds and then pushed all in, having me well covered. At this point, I hated my hand, sensing great strength in my opponent. I felt great confidence exuding from him, and this was obviously a very-strong looking all-in move, since he was going all in against an opponent who looked pot-committed and had made a big reraise against his early-position raise. I was getting roughly 3-1 to make this call with the queens, so the only way I could lay them down was if I was almost 100 percent sure that he would make this all-in move only with aces or kings. Despite how confident he appeared and how strong his all-in raise looked, I could not convince myself that he would not make this play with A-K, or maybe even jacks or tens, so I called. He turned over two black aces, and just like that, I was out of the tournament, finishing 91st and making $8,000 for my efforts. I thought I played great and was a little disappointed with this finish, but you can't win 'em all, as the saying goes, so I will just have to wait a bit longer to win my first World Poker Tour event. I'm young, so I think I'll have many more opportunities.

Congratulations to Eric Brenes for winning the tournament, and to Layne Flack and Mike Matusow for their hard-fought second- and third-place finishes, respectively.

Thomas "Thunder" Keller is a 23-year-old professional poker player and one of poker's young and rising stars. He can often be found playing at Ultimatebet.com under the name gummybear. To learn more about him, go to his website at www.thunderkeller.com. Also, feel free to e-mail him.