2K and Eric Baldwin's 1st WSOP Bracelet

Yesterday's 2K was pretty standard as of late for NL tournies. I had a good mind set and really concentrated on playing well. But.....in a 4 way raised pot I have 64hh out of position. The flop was 974 rainbow and one heart. I checked and the original raiser bet 33% pot (275). I called as did someone else. The turn was the 3h giving me a flush draw and gut shot to go with my pair. I decided to lead 675 into a pot of 1600. The 1st guy folds and the original raiser made it 2K total. With 3K more behind I make the call with intentions of jamming if a 5 or heart hits and going with some kind of read if a 4 hits, and folding the rest of the time. A brick hit and I check folded. 1 orbit later the cutoff raised to 150 (blinds still at 25/50) and I found AQo in the SB. I make it 475 to go with about 2400 behind. He called and flop was A62 with two hearts. I decide a c'raise has the correct line, so I did. He called with the 66 and had me almost dead.
On the up side, I got to watch Eric Baldwin with a top 5 stack go for his 1st WSOP bracelet. He got a bit of luck as his JJ caught up to Mig's QQ on a AKQ10 board, but he played extremeley well. Depsite losing a pot for 70% of the chips in play, with a made flush vs a higher flush draw with one card to come, he cruised right into heads up play. Eric was on the right end of two coolers. With the chips counts close and a flop of Qs10s4d they got it in. Eric's bottom set vs the top two of his opponent. The pot gave him an 8 to 1 chip advantage. Then 20 min. later, Eric won a flip for the title 1010 vs AQ, KJ665 board. Eric is a phenomenal player that deserves all the compliments he recieves. Don't be suprised if you hear his name more and more as the years go on. To celebrate we went to O'Sheas (a classy establishment) to play beruit. I ended the night over at Turnberry with intentions of skipping the 2K limit today. I will be playing the 1500 on Saturday and the 8 game mix on Sunday.


Justin "robert07" Young