On Wednesday it was finally time for the Main Event. As a starting stack we had 50.000 chips and the blinds started at 25/50 with 60-minute periods. Unfortunately, the starting field in this year's tournament was a disappointment with only 75 participants. Even worse was that among these 75 participants there were no less than 26 from Sweden, which actually made the value of the tournament fairly bad since Swedes in general are good poker players.

I got a pretty crazy table draw. At my starting table I had the skilled Goalwin player Jens Lindbladh but except him it was all new faces, which is usually a positive sign. It turned out that the players were generally of good quality and it was a very wild and advanced game from the get go.

At this wild and aggressive table I was probably the wildest of the bunch during the first hour, which is very different from my normal style of play. As we started with such a deep stack, I felt that there was room to play out your whole register and the plan was that I later in the tournament would tighten up and use my wild image to my advantage.

An example of my early maniac game is the following hand. To understand why the hand is played as it is you should be aware that I basically have 3 and 4-bet my opponent preflop in every pot he was involved in.

We are nine players at the table and UTG+1 raises up to 350 pre and I'm varying my game by only calling with 56s (I have 60k) in the position UTG+2. After that the CO, the button and BB calls as well. We are five players seeing the flop and the pot is around 1.750. The flop comes KQ9 and UTG bets out 800 and I intuitively didn't put him on a strong hand, like JT, and decide to try and get him to fold at some point in the hand, so I raise to 1.800. All other players fold, except my opponent who reraise again to 3.100. I suspect that he just did not believe me so I reraise back again to 6.100. To my surprise, I get a new reraise from him to 9.700, and given our history, and his body language, I still believe that he is just tired of me and put me on garbage. I then do a sixth reraise to 13.500 and he goes into the tank. After a while, he pushes all-in and the store is closed, I can't be ahead even if he is out bluffing. I still do not know what he had but I suspect that he outplayed me in that hand. It was a lot of hands like this on our table and it was really fun.

After the above mentioned pot (during level 3) I felt, however, that I had to change tactics and play good hands and not bluff too much. I was now back to roughly the start stack, and nothing much happened for me the next few hours since I was card dead and did not feel that my fold equity was very good with my wild image. Towards the end of the day when some player were busting we got some replacement players on our table and it slowly becoming a quieter game, and except Goalwin's team manager Albert Rolander we also got two real fishes at the table who could not let go of any hands. Jens Lindblad ran into one of them in the following pot. The board is on the river 66TQK (note a little unsure of the exact board, but irrelevant). Jens had played tight during the day and only showed up premium hands. On the river there is about 30k in the pot and Jens has 120k and his opponent 40k. Jens decides to go all-in and put the maximum amount of pressure on his opponent. To everyone's surprise, a Croatian player manage to call with 55 which really is quite sick when Jens very well could have been bluffing with a hand that beats that hand with a big margain.

Unfortunately, I lose a big pot at the end of the day against the "sleeping" chipleader from the last post who woke up with a really good hand (AA) on low flop where I had JJ. Since I've seen him play like he did in the tournament two days earlier (where he was very inclined to bluff) and from a cash game session the day before, I had to pay off big bets and my stack end up at 28k after day one which was not a disaster but still not very fun. Despite the negative ending, day two was gonna start with blinds at 250/500 and 100 ante, which meant that there was still a lot of poker to be played.

Day 2

My table draw for day two was completely worthless. We sat four Swedes in a row, in seat 5 Christer Lagerström, in seat 6 Albert Rolander, I sat in seat 7 and in seat 8 Lill-Björne (Lindberg). The table was not a whole lot of fun when we initially played seven handed. I quickly lost much of my stack in the following pot. I sit on the button and Christer Lagerström raised up to 1.200 and I reraise with pocket 8's to 3.300 (I do not like my betsizing retrospectively, should have been about 2.800). On a flop of 235 it was checked to me and I bet 3.500, and then Christer checkraise me all-in and I have a difficult decision. In the end I decide to fold and now my stack is down to 20k.

A few orbits later I lose a big part of my stack when I raise up with AK and get called by the player behind me. On a cold flop I decide to checkraise bluff when I just do not think a continuation bet will work. Unfortunately, my opponent responds with a raising all-in and I am forced to fold again and now only have 8.000 chips left.

I get to change table and my stack has now shrunk so that it is an all-in stack. I still haven't won a pot on Day 2 and I'm running cold but I have not given up. The new draw is a great table with only Croating players who can't play. They look at their cards in advance and I can when it's my turn to act see how virtually all the players behind are going to act. The table is very good and if I can only get my stack up a bit this should be easy chips. In level 3, I finally win my first pot and I manage to survive and bring up my stack to 18k for two hours by stealing the blinds more often than once per orbit.

Now, unfortunately, the tournament's last hand is played for me. The blinds are 500/1.000 with 200 ante and I have 18k. I'm sitting UTG and look down on a junk hand 63o. Since I have been able to see what opponents will do for me, I'm of course looking in this hand as well. To my delight all the players to the BB that has not checked his cards are about to fold. Since I only have BB to get by, I decide to make a raise to the 2.200. All players fold to BB who calls after some hesitation.

The flop comes J62 and I have connected with a middle pair. To my surprise, BB now bets out 3.500 and after having studied him I decide that he looks very weak. I simply believe that he will fold if I go all-in here so I decide to push. If I'm getting called I still have some outs (five outs) to meet two pairs (20%). Unfortunately, he makes a crying call with QJ. Neither the turn or river is of any help to me and I am out.

I really liked the structure of this tournament and it was really fun to play. If more tournaments in this buy-in level would be played with this structure, I would play a lot more tournaments.

You can read what happened to the rest of the Goalwin team here .

Next trip for the Goalwin team is to Ibiza from September 21-25 for the Estrellas Poker Tour. You can expect more reports here later.