Friday the 23rd of June, I started the biggest vacation I have taken in some time.   My daughters and I flew to Quincy, Illinois where my parents and sister still live and where I grew up.  I will be visiting them and playing poker infrequently through the 4th of July.  Then my girls will accompany me to the American Southwest where we are taking in the Grand Canyon, Painted Desert, Yosemite Park, Redwood Forest, Magic Mountain, LA, SF and whatever other sites we decide to visit.  I have been dreaming of taking my girls on this vacation for years and am thrilled that my poker success is finally allowing this to happen! 

Speaking of poker, I will be sending the girls home from Vegas on 19 July and then I will stay to start playing in WSOP events.  I will start with the 5K short handed event that starts on the 20th.   I will also be playing the ME and Sunday is my start day for that event.  I will play other events if I win my way in through satellites.  Pokershare will put me up in a room in the RIO from July 20 to August 12 and I will take advantage by playing cash games when not in tournaments.  I will of course be partying with the ecrew and attending the online site parties I can get into.  

I grew up on a ten acre plot of land on which my father built several houses when I was a kid.  We still have 5 acres remaining.  I point this out because my parents and brothers in law are golf crazy.  So is both my sister and my nephews.  They all love to play and try to involve me whenever I return to visit.  I have always been athletic and played nearly every sport from football to basketball to wrestling when I was in school.  But I have never seen the attraction of trying to put the little white ball in the little hole on steaming hot greens in the middle of the summer.  I absolutely loathe playing golf!  So of course my parents proceed to build a mini, three hole golf course on their remaining bit of land next to the house.   And they practically beg me to try and play it as well.  Sunday, my parents have the nephews out to the house and are going to play a ‘round' with them and my daughters.  I sort of politely beg off reminding them how I feel about this silly game.  So my mothers suggests that I can spend the day playing poker since she knows I want to ‘work' some while on my vacation.  ( I doubt if she realized Sunday is the day of the big online tournaments and that I am truly itching to play since I have had 2 full days off!!)

I grab my new ‘monster' laptop and head to my brother in laws house to play poker while the rest of the family indulges in their own silly ‘sport'.  My brother in law has a DSL connection I can use, whereas my parents only have dialup, so the change of location is a must.  I promptly proceed to sign up for four of the Sunday tournaments and play some cash while waiting for them to get started.
I sign up for the $200s on Party, FTP, UB and Paradise.  I skip Stars which is a $1000 buy in this last weekend of the month. 

I have pretty lackluster starts in all 4 of them.  I never get any traction in Party or FTP and go out within the first two hours in those two.  UB and Dise are slightly different stories however.  I manage to get to 10k which is 4x the initial starting chips in both of them.  This was near the end of the 2nd hour in both tournaments.  My family is beginning to show up at my bro in law's house around this time too.  They are having a barbecue and improptu whiffleball game which they of course want me to join.  I love to play whiffleball but have to beg off.   When the game finishes they come back inside for an update and my kids tease me that I am down to only one tournament.  I have busted out just short of the money in the UB tournament as my 10K stack refused to grow and I lost a coinflip to go out there.  On Dise, I still have a 10K stack and we are approaching the money there too. 

The tournament on Dise has been pretty uneventful so far and I have managed to get this deep with no major bluffs and having my good hands hold up for once.  Since the end of the second hour I have been in a good card ‘desert'.  For the next two hours I don't think I ever saw AK or a pocket pair higher than 88.  All I do is tread water at around 10K by stealing in position.  On and on my desert continues.  We reach the money and I am in about 50th of the 70 remaining players.  My stack begins to oscillate between 20K and 10K as I managed to double up a couple times on coin flips or one instance where I had my opponent dominated with AQ.  I never can seem to get any traction though as my dearth of cards makes it difficult to do more than steal to just hold position.  We get down to the final 30 and I am in 25th or so. 

I look at the remaining players and see that the only ‘name' players I recognize are Sam E Nole and SquintNGo.  Sam is #6 on the pocketfives ranking but I have no experience against him.  Squint often plays cash on the 5/10 tables at bodog with me and I am familiar with his style.  I manage to double up to 35K just as we reach the final two tables.  Sam ends up on my right and Squint ends up to Sam's right.  Each of them have bigger stacks than I by far as they each are in the top 5 of the tournament. 

I have eaten my dinner by the laptop and the family begins to trail in to watch the ending of this tournament after they finish theirs.  None of them have seen my play late in a major MTT and they are pretty excited.   My girls are 14 and 16 and my nephews are 9 and 11.  I love excited kids, but I have to keep them under control so I can concentrate.    All the excitement and distractions prevent me from taking my usual notes when I get down to the end of a major tournament.   Thus much of the remainder of this story comes from a faulty memory. 

My card drought came to an end on the final 2 tables.  I wasn't ‘hit by the deck' but I started to finally get playable hands.  I slowly begin to build my stack as we get down to the FT.  Several big hands develop, but I never have to suck out or go all in on a draw to build my stack up to average.  Sam and Squint are both stealing liberally and I come over the top of both of them several times adding to my stack.  All three of us are getting ‘fat' with our steals and get up over 200k..  The stacks on my table are on average far larger than the stacks on the other table as we get down towards the FT.  I take out one of the last players before the FT to go over 300K in my chip count.  I wish I could remember the hand, but I believe it was a coin flip that I won when my pocket pair held up. 

I get to the FT with the CL thanks to taking out that fella before the final.  I am thrilled at Paradise' FT format as the other table breaks and fills the holes in my table keeping Sam and Squint to my right.  I had been seriously fearing a reshuffle since I have banged both of them pretty hard on several occassions and they had to back down to my resteals.  I am able to continue that pattern on the FT.  My lead at just over 300K chips is quite tenuous though since we have 4 or 5 stacks over 200K and both Sam and Squint are among those 5 and this will be quite a tough final. 

I maintain my stack as the table dwindles down to the last 6 players.  Sam proved to be fairly aggressive on the FT.  He stole liberally and built his stack above 400K and had the CL at one point.  He soon lost a couple big hands and was put out in 9th however.  Squint has no such luck and dwindles down to 100K as the blinds climb.  I come over the top of one of his steals when I have a pocket pair and he has to call my all in.  I win the all in and put him out in 6th.  This boosts me to around 400K but I am 4th of the 5 remaining stacks.  No one has a dominant chip lead and the tourney is wide open at this point.   

I get JJ at this critical point in the tourney and Nematacyst is unfortunate enough to have AK when I do.  We end up all in preflop for a huge pot.  I hit a J on the flop and my bro in laws house goes wild as I finally have a dominant chip lead when this hand holds up!  I have around 900K chips when it gets 3 handed with both of my opponents around 400- 500k.  The blinds are 10K/20K and we play 3 handed for what seems like an hour!  I lose several ‘small' hands to both of my opponents and end up with around 600K chips.  Pandajerk is to my right and has a similar amount of chips.  I get A9s in the SB and I call his button raise.  Rooste7777 folds to let us battle it out.  Flop comes 458 rainbow with one spade.  I bet out 3/4 pot and Panda raises me twice that as he has started to do nearly every time I bet the flop.  I have folded several times when missing the flop previously but am determined to switch things up on this hand.  I call his raise and the 7s hits the turn.  This gives me a flush draw, a gutshot str8 draw and two overs.  The pot is around 450K and I have 400K remaining.  I push all in for the first time since we got to three handed at least 30 minutes ago.  The whole ‘audience' at my bro in laws is chanting ‘fold' as Panda agonizes over the decision I just put him to.  After what seems an eternity of chanting, he folds and we break into cheers at the house!!  I now have over 900K chips and a commanding lead once again.  In the whole tournament, this is the one and only time I bluffed/semibluffed majorly at any point!!

I am able to steal and bully the other two players much more effectively after that hand and I slowly build my stack to over a million chips.  Rooste gets the better of Panda and snatches around 200k chips from Panda.  They both get all in shortly after that, but Panda doubles up to over 400K again to the combined moans of the children and my bro in law!  Panda tries to steal from me after this when I get a big hand in the SB again.  In my excitement, I have forgotten what the exact hands were, but I think it was AJ versus an Ace rag for Panda.  We end up all in and I have him dominated when I see his cards.  My hand holds up and I now have 1.5 million chips versus 500K for Rooste.

Many well wishers have come by the FT saying hello to Rooste and implying that she is Clonie Gowen.  She never acknowledges who she is, but the evidence is pretty strong that that is who I was playing.   I steal several times from her and knock her down to 400K in chips when she starts making stands and pushing all in to prevent me from pushing her around.  This builds her back up over 500K and I decide to switch up my 3x raises to 2x so she wins less if she decides to push again when I am on a pure steal.  The FT battle has gone on well over an hour with the final three taking at least a half hour.  My youngest daughter is hanging with her arms around my neck.  She asks, ‘ HOW much longer is this going to take Daddy?'  I reply, ‘Well it could go on all night or be over in the next hand.'  I get AK in the SB and my bro in law says, ‘It could end right now if Rooste has a hand!'  I steal for 2x with the AK and we all cheer when Rooste pushes all in!  I call and we all cheer louder as Rooste flips over A9!  The flop brings a gutshot draw for Rooste and I get this sick feeling in my stomach.  I haven't really been sucked out on for the entire tournament, this would be a helluva time for that trend to end!  Thankfully I dodge all of Rooste' outs and the room erupts in pandemonium!   I have won my first major with most of the important people in my life watching in person.  WHAT and AWESOME feeling.