Xionn wins $555!
On Saturday Xionn won the PokerStrategy freeroll on PartyPoker. After his success we asked him some questions.
Saturday night we hosted a freeroll on PartyPoker exclusively for the members of the English PokerStrategy site. 38 players fought for a total prize pool of $1,500!
PokerStrategy: Congratulations Xionn for winning the PokerStrategy freeroll! Could you please introduce yourself?
Xionn: I'm a 20 year old student from Belgium. I live in a small town close to Leuven. I've started playing poker somewhat less than two years ago.
PokerStrategy: How long have you been a member of PokerStrategy?
Xionn: I joined PokerStrategy somewhere in February this year (that's 7 months ago).
PokerStrategy: You won $555. How does it feel to win this tournament?
Xionn: It feels nice, I don't play a lot of tournaments and I'm not really good at them either. So I'm happy I was able to take this one down and playing a final table is way more exciting than playing cashgames which I normally play (mainly 100NL).
PokerStrategy: How did you do throughout the tournament. Can you describe some decisive hands? What do you think about the competition? Were you scared to play PokerStrategy members only?
Xionn: The first part of the tourney went really well, I actually doubled up in the first orbit. I had AA and some other guy had KK, so we got it all-in and I won the pot. I played pretty tight throughout the whole tourney except for the last part of the final table. A very important hand for me occurred when there were only 6 players left, the blinds were 800/1.600 with a 50 ante. I had the smallest stack (11,590) and got 99 in the SB, some guy in MP got all-in and someone else on the button called him. I figured out I was probably ahead of both their ranges so I called. And they showed 55 and 33, so I took down a pot of 36,520. This made me chipleader of the table.
I wasn't really scared to play PokerStrategy members only, I thought it had to be rather cool to play a tourney with a small field and most probably decent players. But overall it worked out to play a straight forward tight ABC-type of poker.
PokerStrategy: Which tactic did you have when you reached the final table?
Xionn: I had a stack of around 10 000 (a middle sized stack at this table) when the final table started and the blinds were 400/800 with a 25 ante. Only top 6 got payed so I hoped a lot of people would play tight to make sure they'd make the money. That was also what happened, but I got really carddead so I couldn't really do anything and when there were only 7 people left I started to play very tight myself actually, but later on when only 4 people remained I really loosened up and I felt I had somewhat control from there on.
PokerStrategy: Could you please describe the final hand and your thoughts?
Xionn: I had ATo on the button, I did a regular raise of 3xBB and got called by him. The flop came Qc Td 6c, giving me 2nd pair with top kicker. Then the other player who was first to act pushed all-in with a huge pot overbet and I nearly instantly called as I was way ahead of his range for sure. He showed 9h6h for bottom pair, I don't exactly recall the turn and the river card but I know they didn't help him. He had been doing the exact same thing for over 5 times, pretty much every time he called me out of position pre-flop. Most of the heads-up game was just me raising on teh button stealing his blind and sometimes he called and put it all-in like he did in the final hand. So I was just waiting to hit a flop with something like a good 2nd pair or better.
PokerStrategy: Thank you very much Xionn and congratulations again for winning our PokerStrategy freeroll and $555!
