« Back to Jennifer Harman

My PPT Experience

By Jennifer Harman, December 22, 2004

Location: Foxwoods Resort and Casino, CT

arrived at the Foxwoods Resort and Casino in Connecticut totally pumped and excited about the PPT. The PPT, or Professional Poker Tour was the brain child of Steve Lipscomb who also created the ever popular World Poker Tour. What's unique about the PPT is that you must qualify in order to participate. Normally a tournament is open to the public, but many great players were left off this initial elite list of 200 odd players. Much like the PGA Tour in golf, the PPT puts the best against the best.

You couldn't escape the vibe, the energy was all together different from any traditional tournament. Somehow, I think we all felt that we were on the ground floor, the pioneers, if you will, of something big. Poker has become almost a national pastime - the latest media darling, with everyone getting in on the action and yet we were participating in the first ever PPT sponsored event. A "Free Roll" Tournament with $500,000 at stake.

One of the first things that struck me was that every table was tough. Unlike most tourneys, where professionals and amateurs lumped together and the luck of the draw can work for or against you. This was a situation where the world's best players were seated around every table in the room. Oddly this created a calming effect for me, as there were no unknowns and no surprises to deal with.

The game was No Limit Texas Hold'em and the first day we played for about 10 hours or so. We finished the day with 39 players left out of a field of 134. For those lucky enough to avoid elimination would come back the next day and play until 6 players remained.

I struggled the entire first day - never building up a lot of chips - winning a pot here, losing a pot there. I tried to look at the bright side though, as the likes of Doyle Brunson, Daniel Negreanu and others made early exits. Hey a chip and a chair right! When play ended on day one, I was left with just $8100 in chips, good for 39th place out of ... 39 remaining players. Or in other words dead last! I couldn't get much sleep that night. I tossed and turned the whole night bummed out about the fact that I'd have to play the next day with virtually no chips. I wasn't giving up by any means, but realistically, I knew it was an uphill battle to say the least. My strategy was to find a suitable hand to go all in with, and the sooner the better.

The moment of truth came with me holding the 9-7 of spades. I moved in and Brad Daughtery flat called me while the rest of the table folded. He turned over 2 Kings and I said to myself "Oh Well" I guess I can go get some sleep now. I remember looking over to the table beside me, where John Juanda sat with a mountain of chips. I asked him to touch me for luck - he did. The flop came 9 - 7 - 4. Sweet! How lucky was that? That was just the break I needed to get back in the game. I won a little over $14,000 - almost twice what I'd started with on the day, but still way behind the average.

I won a few more pots and had my stack up to somewhere around $30,000. I went all in again with Aces. I didn't need John's touch this time and that early to bed scenario was no longer an option. My Aces held up and all of a sudden, I was a contender. From dead last to in the hunt.

Later in the day we were now down to 10 players and two tables. One more elimination would bunch 9 together at the final table. As fate would have it, I was seated at the big stack table - with such notables as John Juanda, Hoyt Corkins, Ron Rose and Chris Bigler. We proceeded to play big stack poker for the next two hours. By big stack poker I mean that the blinds were relatively small which made the game less of an all in fest and more of a chess match.

Finally, the inflappable and unpredictable, Hoyt Corkins who had been the chip leader was eliminated and the remaining nine moved to one table. Although it had taken us close to 15 hours to get to that point, it took no time at all for us to reach the final 6, as 3 more players, all having come from the other table, were knocked out in a mere thirty minutes time. Not only did I survive, I finally had a mountain of chips of my own, second only to Juanda coming into the final table.

In what can be described as a daze, I rolled into the cash game section of the Foxwoods Resort. Apparently Daniel Negreanu had made a side bet with Barry Greenstein, that I would make a televised final table before Barry's friend/student Mimi Tran. Barry approached me and asked "Did I just lose One Hundred Thousand Dollars?" I smiled and nodded and he smiled back and clasped my hand, offering up his congratulations. At that moment, I was reminded of what I love about this game - we're friends, we're family and we put all our cards on the table - win, lose or draw, we wouldn't have it any other way.

  • Jennifer Harman - Tips and Articles:

  • My PPT Experience

    December 22, 2004

    Surviving from short stack to final table in the PPT - By Jennifer Harman

  • My Tough Decision

    December 22, 2004

    Hand review of a tournament at the Borgata in Atlantic City - By Jennifer Harman

  • Playing Razz

    March 28, 2003

    Just a few things when playing Razz..

  • Should I Stay Or Should I Go

    Being a winning player isn't only about playing good cards...

FULL TILT POKER

$100 FREEROLLS

Available only to member of this site

Any player signing up using the bonus code 100FULL can play at this exclusive freeroll. More details here...

Register here

Open a new account at Full Tilt Poker, write in the a promotion field the following code:

'100FULL' Download & Play

 

Full Tilt Poker News

  • Full Tilt Your Way to Vegas

    IfThe WSOP is just around the corner, but for many Vegas is a very long way a way; a visit to Full Tilt Poker could make it that much closer.

  • Team Full Tilt WSOP antics

    Full Tilt’s team of poker professionals is certainly taking it to the competition in this year’s WSOP. They have captured a couple of bracelets in the first 4 events. It was only bad luck that prevented them from …

  • More Team Full Tilt WSOP news

    Starting with event #14, the Full Tilt professionals really got going. Erik Seidel would only finish 5th in that one, but there was nothing that could stop Mike Matusow from winning #18, as Jens Voertmann, Max Pescatori and Kenny Tran followed suit in events #22, 24 and 25 …

Bonus and Promotions

Full Tilt Poker has nice offers and great promotions, where we give away tons of money. Free poker play and freerolls are available to all players!!!

This Full Tilt Poker deposit bonus can only be used by new players when they sign up for a new player account.

Full Tilt’s SNG Madness is back! - SNG freeroll

If you’re a Sit’n Go specialist, you’ll be glad to learn that Full Tilt Poker’s SNG Madness is back! From June 19 to June 21st, you’ll be able to participate in this rather unique promotion, to secure your share of a $125k overall prize-pool. All you need to do is to play in your favorite SNGs all weekend and you’ll qualify for the promotion.