Alexandre Gomes flushed with success
It’s been quite a year for Team PokerStars Pro Alexandre Gomes. He’s had online success, won a WSOP bracelet ($770,000), final tabled at LAPT Punta Del Este ($68,000) - and earlier this month grabbed fourth place at the PokerStars Caribbean Adventure ($750,000). Here, he tells the PokerStars Blog about that great run in the Bahamas.
by Alexandre Gomes
Hi, everyone. It’s a great pleasure to be writing for the PokerStars Blog. The PCA is, without a doubt, one of the most prestigious events in the world, and I was there for the second time. The first was in 2008, and was my first huge international tournament. The event is so special, not only because of the beauty of the place, but especially for being the largest field in all of the PokerStars tournaments.
I started on a very tough table with Dario Minieri and Noah Boeken - a Team PokerStars Pro table! And with this in mind, I played a little tighter than normal, especially because Dario was sitting on my right.
Things went well on the first day as I managed to increase my stack gradually. I had to move tables six times, which I don’t normally like, but still finished with 123,000 chips when the average was 60,000. Even better, my friend Felipe ‘mojave14′ Ramos, finished the day with 360,000 in chips. Wow!
Days 2 and 3 were very similar, with my stack rising slowly and always above the average. I finished Day 2 with 223,000 and Day 3 with 407,000. But Day 4 was a complete roller coaster! I got up to 4 million, then back to 1.2 million, and at the end was chip leader with 8 million.
The Brazilian crowd was amazing in the last two days, with the huge ballroom filled with the sound of the guys singing and snapping their fingers at each hand (especially at the hand with Kevin Saul, when I had A-A). It was really amazing! After that hand I got very confident at final table even though I knew it would be tough and the other players had lots of ability.
But, unfortunately, I got eliminated in fourth place in a very tough hand: I was second in chips, playing four handed, and got A-A under the gun. I raised and was call by Benny Spindler. The flop was J-J-J, and Benny had the last jack. Like I always say, we just have to learn to deal with situations like that. It happens. This time I had the A-A, maybe tomorrow I will be the one with quad jacks.
I’d like to highlight three players at the final table: Kevin Saul, who had an amazing tournament, being chip leader for a long time. His talent is unquestionable. The guy from Germany, Benny, is really good, too. I played with him for hours in the last couple of days and he seems to be an excellent player who is very intelligent and deserved to be in the final three. And last (but not least) the champion, Poorya Nazari. The guy had only six big blinds when we were down to the last 12 players, and he came back and nailed it!
Besides being disappointed at busting so close to the title, I was still very happy with this result, and even happier because of the support and respect that us Brazilians are starting to have worldwide. And this was only the first major tournament of the year.
This year will belong to Brazil!
Comments Off
