Boring PLO? Okay, so I get to my $1,500 PLO rebuy table, look around, and see absolutely no one I even remotely recognize.

Generally speaking, this is usually a sign of a table that isn't going to be doing much gambling during the rebuy period. Right away I'm thinking how boring this three-hour rebuy period is going to be and try thinking of ways to loosen up the table and perhaps even get some blind all-ins going.

Less than one minute after sitting down, my friend Peter Gould sits down across from me. My dull and blah mood is instantly replaced with enthusiasm and excitement. Peter, similar to me, is not afraid to gamble and not afraid to spend some money in the pursuit of building a monster stack.

Peter and I end up going all-in blind the first three hands. All three times there were one or two others who had looked at their cards and decided to join us but none of them ended up winning.

That's justice for you right there. At the end of the five-minute shove-fest I was fortunate enough to have roughly 25k in chips.

About half an hour into the rebuy period, just when I thought the table couldn't get any crazier, Eli "king of gamblers" Elezra shows up. At this point I'm up to about 35k and I'm confident there have been more rebuys on our table than any other table in the tournament.

Eli Elezra: King of gamblers.

Peter had his stack up to about 20k-30k but after getting unlucky against some other players in a few spots was back to the 6k starting stack after rebuying.

For the next two and a half hours, Peter and Eli managed to get all their chips in almost every hand and myself and the other players on the table weren't shying away from giving them action. Just like the 1k rebuy earlier in the series, I had by far the sickest table and was only in for 3k!

A few big hands:

After losing a few pots I got lucky in a hand where myself, Peter and an unknown player who had been playing relatively tight were involved in a raised pot on a flop of Ts8s8x. I had QQ8T I had bet the flop in position and got called by both of them.

On the 2s turn, the first caller moved in for about 3/4 of the pot, Peter called and I just called behind. After thinking about it I think reshoving would have been the best play, as I thought the first guy could have had TT and thought Peter might have had an 8 with high cards or the flush.

Even though I put TT well in the first guy's range the chances we had the same hand were also likely and also since I had a ten in my hand already it would have been very tough to lay down.

The river brought a beautiful Q giving me the ultimate nuts and Peter had checked in the dark. I potted the river putting myself all-in for about 12k-15k and Peter ended up tank-folding the 8 and nut flush. First guy had TT and I scooped.

Peter Gould: Also not afraid to gamble.

The other big hand I doubled with during the rebuy period is when I had flopped middle set on a draw-y board and shoved to a pot-sized bet on a turn that gave more draw possibilities vs. Peter. I can't remember the exact hand we both had but I had him drawing very slim.

At the end of the rebuy period I had roughly 72k. I went around the room asking people if I should addon for $3k to get 6k more chips and almost everyone said I shouldn't so I elected not to.

I think the average stack on our table was about 40k compared to the average in the tournament which was probably about 12-15k

Post-Rebuy Period

The rebuy period was really crazy but the later stages of the tournament would prove to be even crazier.

I haven't been playing PLO for long. Having only played 4 or 5 PLO tournaments I'm far from experienced and often times don't know what play is most optimal in different situations. However, I think I have a natural ability for the game and my playing style caters very well to it.

I had been playing PLO cash games for the last 3 or 4 days in preparation for the event and had very lucrative results. Even though playing PLO puts me out of my comfort zone, I think most people are far worse than me and I still have a lot of room for improvement.

PLO is really fun and gives bad players chances to make more mistakes and good players the opportunity to be far more creative with thin value bets and complete bluffs than you can ever be in holdem.

PLO gives good players like Tom Dwan the chance to be more creative.

After break things started off pretty slow at our table but quickly excelled. I had been raising a lot of playable hands on the button when people had been limping in hopes to hit a big flop and double up.

Most people are more content with limping behind, but I figured since the blinds were so low relative to our stacks, this was the easiest way for me to double up if I hit a big hand. Plus a lot of the time I would get 1 caller, fire the flop and take down the pot uncontested.

There was one hand where I had 4589ds at 200/400 and raised to 1700 on the button when a middle position player and Eli had limped preflop. First player folded and Eli called. Flop was Ax2x2x.

He checked, I bet 2450 and he instantly raised to around 7k total. My first instinct was to call and float since his line didn't make much sense but I decided that Eli was too much of a sicko and I didn't really feel like getting owned by a 2 barrel on the turn.

He showed Q10J7 and scooped the pot. Great value raise by him! :D

A few minutes later Eli and I got involved in another big pot where there was 5500 in the middle pre-flop, 4-way action, and I was on the SB with Qx8h6xAh. The flop came QQ8 with two diamonds and I checked, next guy checked, next guy checked and Eli bet 4800.

I potted it, it folded around and he thought about it for a few minutes and pushed all-in with something like QJ37 and I held.

At this point I was at about 100k and our table had broke. We played a few hands on my new table consisting of Rami Boukai (Arbianight), Dario Alioto, Mark Vos and Hazards and then went on break.

I ended up spewing down to about 80k and a really interesting hand emerged against Rami who's an extremely good PLO player but a little bit on the tight side.

Rami Boukai.

I took this information into the following hand. Rami limped under the gun. Hazards raised on the hijack to 2800. I called from the SB with Ah5h7d9x and Rami called from the big blind. The flop came down Kh 6h 5x.

So I have the nut flush draw, a pair of 5s and a gut-shot nut straight draw. Hazards bets 5500. I call and so does Rami. The turn card is 7x. Rami leads for 18500, Hazards folds.

At this point I'm 100% confident that Rami has the nut straight (8, 9) from playing with him as often as I have online, I know he's very solid and usually has it when he bets.

There's no way he has a set here because he would have raised the flop and if he decided not to raise the flop he would have checked the turn to draw for a paired board. Obviously he doesn't have the nut flush draw because I have it so the only thing he can really have here is a straight.

So I decide to call the turn and shove any river that pairs the board or brings the flush. The river comes a 6. As I promised myself, I pot the river and Rami thinks for a good 10 minutes and finally mucks. I let out a sigh of relief.. what a great sweat he gave me!

Continue on to Part 2 for an extremely interesting hand that may have ended up costing me the tournament.

--Sorel Mizzi

More blogs from Betfair Poker pro Sorel Mizzi:

• The Run Continues Part 2
• WSOP Events 1 and 2 + Weight-Loss Bet Results
• EPT Monte Carlo Part 2: Deeb-owned
• EPT Monte Carlo Part 1: Sit-And-Go Success