The 2011 Canterbury Fall Classic Main Event Champion is: Me

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I figured I'd do a quick post because I won the Canterbury Fall Classic Main Event here in MN yesterday for almost $71K.  It was a $1K buy-in with 293 entrants.  I was chip leader from 66 people down to the end of day 1, which was 30 people. 

On day 2 I was usually top 3 in chips or so.  I started the day as the chip leader w/ 492K chips, which was a little over 60BB, but 2nd had 360K chips so effective stacks were all 45BB or less, & that's without factoring in antes.  Some guy was trying to get an even chop w/ 20 people left, leaving some money for 1st, 2nd, & 3rd to play for, which I thought was pretty lol. 

I got home sometime after 2am following day 1 & day 2 began at 1pm.  When I went to bed I started to feel like shit.  I spent much of the night either laying in bed not being able to sleep because I felt so awful or making trips to the bathroom attempting to puke.  At about 4am & then about 8am I puked my brains out.  This was all great timing considering I had a big day 2 coming up with a lot of money to be won, and I had gotten very little rest & felt like shit.  After waking up I found out that my brother was also sick.  Considering we both had chicken tender melts the night before I was pretty sure it was some sort of food poisoning.

Once the final started there were 4 of us who were all pretty close in chips for the top spot.  I still felt like complete ass.  I managed to eat a small bowl of chicken noodle soup before leaving for the event.  The same guy again offered a chop, leaving money for 1st, 2nd, & 3rd.  Unless somebody else neglected to speak up I was the only person who refused a chop.  I'm sorry but I'm just not going to do chops, & I'm sure as hell not gonna chop when I'm completely getting hosed on the deal.  The pay jumps are a lot bigger to most people, so I understand that they want a chop, but at least offer something reasonable, which I would turn down anyway.  At the final table everything went pretty well.  I lost some pots, which any pot at this point was a sizeable portion of anyone's stack, but I always managed to stay in 1 of the top spots.  There were a lot of awkward stack sizes behind me for most of the final table, which significantly altered my strategy. 

On 1 sick hand I was BB & the aggressive button w/ about 30BB raised, the nitty SB re-raised, & I had AKs w/ about 30BB as well.  I didn't have to think and pushed all in.  The original raiser, who was now 3 & 4 bet, tanked.  A 4bet is usually really strong but he also had to factor in the dynamics of Btn, SB, BB play.  He ended up calling.  The SB, now facing a 4bet and a call, also tanked.  After much thought he folded.  We flipped up our cards & he the button had AKo.  The SB, not happy, declared that he folded AKs.  The button flopped a runner runner flush draw but we chopped.  This was the only hand I was all in for all of my chips the entire tournament.  There were some very sick spots in this hand but I think everyone probably made the correct play.  My decision was easy.  The button had kind of a sick spot but considering stack sizes & the button, sb, bb dynamic I think AKo is probably a call there.  The SB was facing a 4bet and a call.  He can't expect to see AQ from the button, so he surely isn't in a dominating position, and considering the action the chances that 1 of us has AA or KK or 1 have QQ and the other AK (discounting his outs) are significantly increased.  I think I fold in that spot too, although my opinion could definitely change facing really loose/hyper aggressive players. 

My only 3 outer of the tournament occured when I raised AQs in early position & the chop guy w/ less than 10bb reshoved in late position.  He was a nit & I knew I was crushed but I had a trivially easy call as I was getting damn near 2:1 pot odds.  He probably had about 1/4th of my stack.  I called & flipped over KK.  An ace binked on the flop.  He was pissed, probably even moreso since I was the one who declined the chop, & just walked away without wishing anybody good luck.

When we were down to 4 handed I probably had about 40-45% of the chips in play and had some nice spots.  3 handed the SB raised my BB w/ about 20bb & I reshoved QJ.  He didn't seem happy about it but he called w/ TT.  Personally I would have been pretty happy to get my money in w/ TT 3 handed bvb against a reshove, as a lot of hands you dominate are reshoving & some hands that dominate you probably aren't reshoving.  I binked and he was left w/ about 1BB, getting eliminated on the next hand. 

When we got down to HU I probably had about 3:1 chip lead w/ and my opponent had 20-25BBs.  I mainly just chipped away at small pots as we never saw a river.  On 1 hand he made it 3.3x on the button (his standard raise size) w/ & I reshoved A9s.  He folded 44 face up.  That was the only re-raise of the match.  The blinds went up and a couple hands into the new level I picked up 99 on the button.  My opponent had 8-9BB & I hadn't shoved yet so I figured it would be a good spot to just continue w/ my standard 2x opening raise.  He flatted.  The flop came Qs6s3s & he shoved.  I didn't have a spade but I snap called as I think I'm way ahead of his range in that spot w/ those stack sizes.  He flipped over K6 w/ no spade & I was almost a 4:1 favorite to win the top prize & almost $71K.  My hand held.

Winning $71K in 1 tournament definitely lessens the sting of having $100K stuck from Black Friday a bit.  To MTT players this is pretty normal, but I've played 6 man SNGs most of my life, and now play mainly HU SNGs.  The most I'm going to win or lose in a day is probably $30K, and those days are rare.  While the money and exposure isn't that of winning a WSOP/WPT/EPT event, it's still nice.  After the tournament I did interviews w/ 2 poker magazines & am going to be on the cover of both:

http://www.mnpokermag.com/

http://www.mnpokermag.com/2011/10/16/jared-hubbard-wins-fpc-main-event-70769/

http://www.anteupmagazine.com/

I have always looked at the business side of poker so increased exposure is always nice.  My picture will also be in the rafters at Canterbury since it was the main event.  I think the Canterbury Fall Classic Main event might actually be the biggest 1st place prize in MN live poker considering there's no WPT events here. 

Before last Monday I hadn't played an MTT online or live in over a year.  I figured I'd play some Canterbury events when I got back from Europe as a nice change of pace.  I certainly wasn't playing them for the long run hourly rate as that's much higher online at Lock for me where I can play $1K HU SNGs.  I played Monday & Tuesday's $230 events but didn't get too much going.  On Thursday I played the $550 6 max event and was crushing my original table with about 100K in chips off of a 15K starting stack.  Our table broke & all of a sudden I was 2nd to last in chips at my table.  My table was full of big stacks.  I ended up taking 22nd (20 pay) when I reshoved about 16bb vs the button w/ 98s & he woke up w/ QQ.  In Friday's $550 event I didn't get too much going.  While I hadn't played an MTT in over a year, I certainly understand MTT strategy.  I'm a student of the game & I'm not going to go into an event if I don't think I have a significant edge.  I believe the this was my 13th or so live tournament.  I've considering getting into more though, mainly to increase my exposure and it can be a nice change of pace, so we'll see.

While I only put 1 bad beat on a player, and it was for only 1/4th or so of my chips, I was still very fortunate to have a lot of my hands hold & win also win some flips.  I just laugh at people who win an MTT & claim they didn't get lucky.  If it's an MTT w/ 1,000+ players that statement is simply laughable, but  even a tournament with a couple hundred players you need some luck.  The problem is that many players only look at 1 form of luck, and simply point to the fact that they always got their money in good.  However, there's many other forms of luck besides sucking out: winning more than 50% of flips, card distribution, table draw, and your position at the table relative to other good players are some that come to mind.  Personally I only had 1 big suckout, and probably didn't win more than 50% of my flips.  However, I think I had good card distribution & possibly good table draws, although I haven't played enough of these events to know what the average table draw looks like.

Thanks to my wife Paula, my brother Jeff (hubs89), my friend Andrew (vosh1313), and my friend Ryan (skapman33) for boring themselves watching live poker on day 2 to support me.

http://www.canterburypark.com/LinkClick.aspx?fileticket=ucTrz730FNU%3d&tabid=146

They wanted me to wear a Canterbury shirt for the picture so I had to take off my Lock shirt but I obviously look way cooler in my Lock gear so my wife took a picture of me that way:

Fellow Lock Elite Pro Matt Stout's blog of the Lock retreat part 1:

http://stoutpoker.com/?p=415