I am so excited, even 24 hours later, I don’t know where to begin.

As I was browsing the lobby at PokerStars, I saw a step 6 had 10 of the needed 12 players signed up.  The field was tough as what would be expected in a step 6, but I didn’t care.  Something inside told me that this was the one to play.  So I listened to my gut and signed up.

The game moved along incredibly slowly since we started with pretty deep stacks and the blinds were not escalating as they would in a turbo.  There was definitely plenty of play.  Some players obviously knew this as I noticed alot of deep-stack-type plays such as “floating.”  I had to adjust pretty quickly.

It was nearly an hour later and only 1 of the 12 starting players had been knocked out, and you could sense other players making moves to try and chip up.  When the following hand came up:

Click here to view a larger version.

Depending on how you look at it, AK is really a tough decision here.  I could easily make a case for folding.  However, I really thought that the button (M555SSM) was making a move.  Up to this point he had shown he is not afraid to reraise pre.  I thought he was just making a squeeze play here, and well Wes was cold calling all day.  I also felt that the SB who pushed all in knew this as well.  So I thought his range of hands here could easily be behind my AK.

I took up quite a bit of time as I finally made the decision to call.  Unfortunately it didn’t work out, but I am still happy with my call.  So it looked like this tournament was not mine to win as I was left with 7 big blinds as the blinds moved up to 75/150 the next hand.  I was really in dismay thinking that it was over.  But I never gave up!

I slowly worked my stack back up to find myself in the final 3.  It was then that I was confident that the seat was mine.  I knew it was just a matter of time.  A little while longer, the other two stacks played a huge hand in which one player got lucky to win.  It was a hand that I was shocked to see played out the way it was, but I was elated as the player that won had more chips than the other; meaning we were down to 2 players.  The game was over.  I won a seat (two were up for grabs).

I was jumping up and down like a school girl at field day.  I took a desktop pic of the lobby after I won to just make it official as I was still pinching myself.

So now I am 12 thousand dollars richer!  I have since decided to take the cash and opt out of playing in the the WSOP.  I might however attempt to win another seat.  If I do win another, I will definitely play the main event then.

I also want to note that a poker goal of mine that I set in October of ’07 has FINALLY been reached.  It was my 100 to 10k goal.  I was up to 5k within 6 months and nearly lost it all and then I basically had to start over.  I was starting to question if I would ever make it.  Now, I am looking forward to my next goal 10k to 100k.  Wish me luck! 

Oh….if you wanted to see the full hand history of the step 6:

Click here to view a larger version.

What are steps?

If you aren’t familiar with the steps, they are basically a way to qualify for a live major poker tournament for as little as $7.50.  They are a group of single-table (9 players) tournaments that consist of 6 different levels.  Starting at step 1, in order to get to step 2 you would need to finish in the top 2 spots.  The same for each level until you get to step 6 where you play for a prize often around 10k+.

My attempt to get to step 6

I have played these steps in the past, and have made it to step 6 a couple of times starting from step 1.  Thanks to some pretty poor luck, nothing big materialized from those step 6′s.  So this year I was hoping to take another shot at the steps with hopes of making a 10k+ score.

I had been accumulating step 2′s over the year as I would use my frequent player points (FPP’s) to play in step 1′s.  You can actually play in step 1 for 500 fpp’s instead of $7.50. I ended up spending just over 50,000 fpp’s.  To make a long story short, I am left today with one step 6 ticket ready to be played.

If I could cash out the step 6, which unfortunately you can’t, I would be $2,100 richer (the cost to buy in directly into step 6).  I really wish I could just take the cash and reinvest half of it back into the steps.  But it is what it is, and I am stuck here pondering what to do.

To play or not to play…….

…..that is the question.  Should I hold it for a later date?  Should I try to get more step 6′s first?  I really just don’t know what I am going to do as of yet.  Something is telling me to wait it out thought instead of playing it now.

The plan is to just gradually play more and more steps until I am left with about 5+ step 6′s.  This way I would feel confident in my chances of winning at least once.  The pressure would really be relieved, I would think.

Confident to win

I am confident that I will eventually win a step 6.  I just don’t know when.  I am just trying to pave the way to see to it that I can be most likely to succeed.

How can I be so confident that I will even get to another step 6?

Well, this is when record keeping comes in handy.  I have an excel spreadsheet that I use that keeps tally of the number of steps that I play and what place I come in.  It is really great to know the “chances” of getting to step 6.  Though there is such a thing as variance, I feel like keeping stats does give me some idea as to my expected value of playing these steps.  Below is a picture of the “totals section” of the spreadsheet, with my stats:

I am happy that I was able to get a step 6.  But to be honest, I am disappointed at the same time.  I really ran wayyyy below expectation in the step 3′s.  I was really getting discouraged.  At one point, I was starting to doubt that I would ever get to a step 6.  According to previous step attempts, I normally come in 1st/2nd place in those around 27-31 percent.  This year I only came in the top two spots 15 percent of the time!

Somehow though, I was able to turn four step 4′s into a step 6.  I will let you know when, if any time soon, I decide to play it.

If you are interested in getting a similar spreadsheet, then I have made it available in the NoMeNot E-Store for free.

So after getting pretty accustomed with the step system, and seeing as I believe any good SNG player should show profit in these things, I took my W$ and played in some (4) step 3′s.

Well, I won two step 4 direct satellites for a win of W$1,060 from my original W$328 investment. Hmmm……could I be on to something here?

I went through all of my past stats in the WSOP steps and just by buying in from the step 3 level and playing for the step 4 satellite in these WCOOP steps, I should show a pretty decent profit.

So over the next week or so, I will be trying to bang these things out and see where it takes me.

BR: $2,868.80 (1,100 of which is W$)