Downswing
- Puddnhead
- 20 minutes ago
- 8 min read
Coming off my first losing poker trip of 2026 I had a pretty quick turnaround before driving to Milwaukee for the $1110 MSPT Main Event at Potawatomi.
Houston had started off promising with a final table but I ended it with back to back stone bubbles and down $33k overall. After running hot for a few months I was back to mortal.
And it wasn't like I had just been coolered. On the main event soft bubble I had piled in heaps with 8 high on a paired flushy river. On the high roller stone bubble I had raised and called off nearly half my stack with J8. I had my reasons, but possibly this was just bad poker. Maybe I was not as good as I thought I was.
On the drive to Milwaukee I watched the WSOP 2009 Main Event broadcast on my phone. I find these shows a really good way to pass the time on long drives. You can keep your eyes on the road for the most part and just listen to the action, glancing at the video occasionally.
The final 27 of the 2009 WSOP Main was insane. Leo Margets, Lucky Chewy, Ben Lamb, Jeff Schulman, Antoine Saout, Joe Cada, Jonathan Tamayo, Antonio Esfandiari, and Phil Ivey! Watching it back now it's wild to think that 6 of these players in later years made it back to the Main Event final table. Tamayo even won it. I think this is my all time favorite tournament broadcast.
I arrived at my AirBnB on the outskirts of Milwaukee just as Billy Kopp was bluff jamming a paired flushy river to dust off heaps vs the legendary fish Darvin Moon. Hey, I've done that!
Day 1A in the MSPT started late for me on level 6 at the 400/800 blind level. That didn't stop me from firing 4 bullets before the end of late reg though.
According to my notes it seems I played pretty well. I took a nice line with 2nd pair in a single raised pot out of position:
Ultimately though I was unable to find a bag. I max late regged and got in my final 4bb with pocket 3s facing two limps. Not going to make my top 10 punts of 2026 list but I do think this is a bad jam. I lost to the original limper's pocket 5s, extending my tournament cold streak.
Friday I was back at Potawatomi for another 4 bullet go at bagging a tournament.
My first bullet I grinded several levels then busted in a goofy spot where I sensed weakness from a 3-better so cold 4-bet with KQ only to get priced into calling a jam from the original raiser and busted to their AK.
The next two bullets I lost flips AJ < 33 and 22 < AK. Not much to see there.
My final bullet of the day was memorable though. I was at a table with Minnesotans Dave Bashel and Jeff Petronak. Both friendly fun guys. In poker terms I would consider them low stakes regs. Dave is on the tighter side and Jeff is looser. But they are both thinking players who are winning in lower buyin fields.
The three of us were all sitting next to each other at one end of the table chatting. Dave was having fun and felt like drinking. Jeff was already drinking. So I joined them without much hesitation and we started ordering rounds of Spotted Cow.
Towards the end of late reg I caught fire. I spun up my 30k starting stack to 200k and then went for a big overbet jam on the river:
I was up to 18 starting stacks with just a couple levels to go in the night and probably chip leading the 1B field. Surely this was the end of my cold streak.
Well, not so fast.
I lost a 3b pot with AQ vs Jeff where I ended up with ace high and folded the river.
I doubled up a shorty A8s < AQo.
Then I lost a big one vs Jeff where there was a shorty all in and I couldn't find the good fold for a side pot with QJ on Q774J and lost to Jeff's 76.
So that was half my stack and the chip lead gone in a hurry. But when we reached the bubble I still had over 200k and plenty of chips to bag for Day 2.
The first hand on the stone bubble it folded to Jeff who opened the button. He was our table chip leader. I looked down at KQo in the BB. I had 25bb. It would be a disaster to get it in as a dog here and bubble. But I had no sense of danger. I bravely jammed my entire stack and... he folded. Phew!
The very next hand the HJ opened. Jeff called in the CO, and Dave overcalled on the button. I looked down at AJo in the SB. I was thinking Jeff and Dave would 3b all their AQ/AK and JJ+. So I'm dominating their entire ranges and I really only need to worry about the original raiser. There's so much dead money in the pot. I'm all in!
The original raiser was pretty upset about it but folded. The cold shower came when Jeff called. Dave then was in the blender and ended up folding AK. The original raiser said he had folded AJ. Jeff tabled JJ. I was dead to 1 out.
Jamming 28bb in this spot is an absolute punt. You should literally have no jams here. In the SB on the stone bubble facing raise-call-call we should 3b small or fold our entire range.
When I ripped 8 high as a bluff on the bubble in the Houston Main Event it was debatable if that was drunk hubris or good aggression. This one was not debatable. Just terrible.
I flopped a gutshot straight draw against Jeff and turned an open ender. The river was a brick though and I was bubble boy yet again.
I had stone bubbled 3 tournaments in a row. I had gone 34 entries in a row without cashing. My most recent failure was undeniably a blunder by me. If there's a rock bottom in tournament poker besides going broke I guess this is it.
Saturday morning I hopped on a video call with my friend Al and told him about torching a monster stack the previous night. We had been doing poker study sessions every Saturday morning for months. We would catch up on the past week of poker and then run through a handful of spots before I headed off to whatever tournament I was playing that day.
I do learn a bit going over spots with him and it's definitely useful to talk through the spots out loud. But my NLH game is more advanced than Al's for now so I think on the poker side he benefits more than me from these study sessions.
For me though these calls are therapy. I get to talk about my massive fuckups. Then we go over a bunch of spots and I'm like okay I'm not terrible at poker. I do know some things.
On my drives to and from the casino I had been listening to a Suited Kings podcast with performance coach Jared Alderman. I liked a lot of what I was hearing. He didn't expect people to be perfect. Not everyone is a sober gym rat smoothie-drinking angel. When we make a mistake we just have to accept that it felt bad and that's okay.
I was on my biggest poker downswing in recent memory and coming off an epic punt the previous night. But headed to the casino for Day 1C I felt... totally fine?
Most of the hands I wrote down from Saturday I love my thought process. I really had my A game.
I was getting max value with my nutted hands. I was picking the right spots to fire big bluffs. Then I made a big calloff with AJo vs the Waz:
I later got lucky in a big 3b pot vs my friend Uri where I called a small turn bet into the dry side pot and rivered a straight. But I also made some good disciplined folds in spots where it would be easy to get splashy with a big stack.
Late in the night somebody asked me what happened the prior night. I told him "I played badly and lost all my chips!"
That didn't happen this time though. I bagged up 550k (18 starting stacks) and was going to be one of the big stacks for Day 2.
I showed up to Day 2 a bit tired but in good form again. Early on I got a couple nice bluffs through then scored a big KO with flopped top 2 pair vs Kanut Ozturk's pocket aces.
The first big sweat of the day came when we were down to about half the day 2 starting field. I put in a light 3b against "Howard" and faced an overbet flop jam:
Shortly after the passing of Howard I got moved to a new table and was seated to the immediate left of an even bigger stack belonging to Chris Moon - a reg from Michigan who I did not know.
Chris got a little heated after I 3b him with T9s and he called with T9s and we were all in on the turn with the same nut straight. He had a flush draw freeroll to go with his straight but I dodged it. As we were chopping up the pot he taunted me with "try that again!"
"What, jam with the nuts?"
"Three bet me with T9."
"I suppose I will?"
I got a kick out of that. I can't remember the last time I offended someone by raising them with a weak hand. I thought we were destined to play some more big pots but if we did I guess they didn't make my notes. He busted with 6 tables remaining and left muttering about the injustice of it. Poker, it turns out, is not fair.
At the 3 table redraw I got moved to the table of the tournament chip leader "Prince."
Prince was playing more than half of the hands and didn't have much of a fold button. I made no effort to avoid him. If I was going to win this tournament I would need his chips.
Early on at his table I played a nervy hand for heaps where I stuck it all in on the turn with a KQ top pair of queens and was called by his... KQ top pair of queens.
Then the next level I was all in again after 3-betting Prince preflop and this time he folded a small pair on the turn to my overpair of QQ.
With 20 left Prince and I both called a 6bb jam and I tripled barreled for tiny sizes into the dry side pot:
I was never able to take the chip lead from him but I was catching up.
With 10 left I somehow got in heaps blind vs blind with middle set vs a straight draw and held to notch the KO which sent us to the final table!
I came into the final table 2nd in chips and without much respect for the chip leader. I thought I had a pretty good chance to ship it.
I was pretty card dead and quiet until we got down to 6. Then I played a couple critical 3b pots against the eventual winner - a cool rec who had been pounding beers all day long. He won both hands bringing me back to the middle of the pack. The 2nd hand was probably the biggest mistake I made all tournament:
Ultimately I ran it against Prince one last time. This time I got in 40bb with AKo vs his 99 and lost the huge flip to bow out in 6th for $56,000.
It wasn't the $250k victory I had been hoping for but I was proud of how I had rebounded from my 1B blowup to reach this final table and end my downswing. If I could stone bubble in devastating fashion and then come right back with my A game the next day I think that bodes well for my future in poker.
The brutal reality of tournament poker is that you can play great for days and make one mistake that will ruin your whole tournament. That's the nature of no limit.
But there's a flip side to that coin: In tournament poker you just need to put it all together one time and you can hit a huge score that compensates for many previous mistakes. To be a cash player you need to be consistently good. To be a tournament player you need to be occasionally great.
Occasionally great is more my style.