“Feels good to be a champ!”
So said “MAZAAZAZI” yesterday when speaking with PokerStars Blog about his big win last weekend in WCOOP Event #9-L.
Even if most of us haven’t won a WCOOP before, we can all identify with the sort of satifaction that comes from such an accomplishment. There were 2,269 entries all told in the No-Limit 5-Card Draw (Progressive KO) event, which meant it would take MAZAAZAZI more than eight hours to survive it all to capture a $1,716.83 first prize, plus another $957.68 in bounties.
Talk about a sweet ROI! As MAZAAZAZI only entered once, he had spent his Saturday turning $11 into a cool $2,674.51!
A lot of us can also probably identify with another aspect of MAZAAZAZI’s experience playing Event #9-L — namely, jumping into a low-stakes poker tournament for which the variant isn’t necessarily one with which we are all that familiar.
“I had no expectation when I registered the tourney, since I haven’t played the game much,” MAZAAZAZI explains. “But I was pretty sure 99% of the field hadn’t either,” he adds.
After Googling some general tips, though, MAZAAZAZI was off and running, and soon enough felt as though that little bit of preparation had given him a small but significant edge.
“I felt people were a little too tight and I was able to steal a lot of blinds uncontested,” he says. That sort of aggression helped him accumulate enough chips to survive as the tournament reached the money and continued further. Then during the seventh hour he surged up above the chip average to be in prime position once they were down to the last table.
“I started the final table with a pretty big stack, and there I was able to steal blinds even more easily,” he observes. “I can’t remember any big hands, but the last one… I got pretty lucky.”
Up against “cvltvre” of Russia and with a chip lead, MAZAAZAZI had gotten cheeky predraw and found himself forced to discard more cards than his preflop aggression had suggested he should.
But things worked out.
“I three-bet bluffed predraw and drew three cards [while keeping] A-Q,” he says. “Got trips, went all in, and luckily my opponent had made kings up.”
Five-card draw is one of the oldest poker variants there is, having been first introduced nearly two centuries ago. Like millions before him, the luck of the draw had favored MAZAAZAZI to win him the final pot and the title.
And as he says, it felt good.
“I’ve played poker for about 12 years, but very casually and losing for most of it,” MAZAAZAZI grins. “About a year-and-a-half ago I started to play a bit more seriously, and this year I’ve had some good results.”
Such experience means MAZAAZAZI is plenty aware of the work required to win consistently at poker. In other words, he well knows that spending a few minutes on Google before sitting down often isn’t enough to ensure a player can be consistently successful. Nor does he care to experience the ups and downs a professional necessarily endures.
“I’m not aiming to become a pro,” he notes. “I don’t think I could handle the swings and the stress that comes with it. I like it as a fun hobby that might make me some extra cash.”
Congratulations to MAZAAZAZI for earning his first WCOOP title!
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