Huge Saturday Night

Well, last night I was home by myself as my daugther was at a friend's house and my wife was at some tupperware party or something. I had not had a great afternoon of playing and was looking for some real play. I happened to notice that there was a $109 MTT that was starting up in a little bit and there were only 42 signed up for it. I thought about it for about 35 minutes on whether to play in it or not. I have always wanted to play in the big tourneys, but my bankroll is not huge and so I have not done so.

I had won $200 a couple weeks back to play in the big million dollar Sunday tourney on Stars, so I decided that I would play the Saturday night $109 and then not play on Sunday. I went for it and played the tourney.

I just played solid poker nothing spectacular. I did not play any speculative hands to speak of and kept my position in mind at all times. When I had hands that required raising I raised. I did not get out of line all night long really. I took notes on everyone and looked up every player I played against in an online database to see their results to get an idea of their skill level so that I would have a frame of reference as to what they might be capable of.

I made one move early on at the 10/20 level when I had raised with AK and got called by one good player and one loose caller. The flop came AQ7 and I bet about 1/2 the pot and got called by the good player, the turn was a 7 and I tried to think what hands he might have that would call preflop and just call on the flop. His stack was down to about 550 and any bet I would make would pretty much have him pushing all-in. I thought that he had AQ and that I was behind but the pot was huge and I had him covered, so I put him all-in and he called with AQ, I hit the K on the river and he was gone and I was up to 2500 chips at level 1.

My next big hand was when I had AA and reraises the guy to my right who raised to 3BB to 9BB. He called and the flop came AKK. He checked it to me and I checked behind hoping to induce some action on the turn. The turn was a 2 and he checked to me. the pot is 585. I bet out 185 which was very very weak. I was hoping that he would come over the top of me, or at least call. He reraised me to 370. I paused a long time and then called. The river was a Q and he pushed all in for 1550. I quickly hit call and he showed KQ for a smaller full house. I was at 4600 chips and it was level 2. I was off and running.

I had AK later and got all in against two short stacks, one had 44 and the other had QQ. I hit the K on the flop but a 4 came on the river and I lost 25% of my stack, which I quickly got back from the lose caller who raised in early position and to 300 and I reraised to 750 with AQ. He called and the flop was J high. He bet out to ckd to me and I bet about 3/4 of his remaining stack and he folded, as I thought he would. This guy had called with 34s earlier and had shown a propensity for raising any two suited and lots of other hands and calling raises with nothing. I was going to go to the river against him because I knew he was very very weak.

I made a play way later when the blinds had gotten up there. I think we were 7 handed and I had A8 of clubs UTG and raised 3BBs. I had hardly played any hands and had not actively stolen any blinds. When I raised most times people gave me credit for big hands, and they were smart, because for the most part that's what I had. I the big blind pushed all in against me. The BB had shown that he was a very aggressive player and had played many weak hands very aggressively. I was getting great odds to call against him. I did not think he had a big hand and his raise all-in was very big in relation to my raise. I did not think he had anything so I called. He had something like KT. My hand held up and he was gone.

I misplayed AAs one time UTG+1 when the UTG shortstack went all in for less than 1BB and I made a normal raise to 3BB. I should have limped in and prayed that a big stack came over the top of us. My bad. As it was it would have been very good to build a sidepot on this hand, because I lost 1bb to the shortstack who sucked out. I suffered about 3 or 4 suckouts in this tourney when I was the big favorite.

For the most part, I believe that my money went in with the best hand all but 2 hands. I finished 9th making the final table, outlasting my mentors along the way and many, many poker pros, which really validates my skills in my eyes. This was my biggest poker win in terms of payoff and competition faced. I really had a great time. If not for a suckout at the end when I had JJ and was against A5o I might have gone even deeper, but it was a good run. I even played against the 2004 WSOP Main Event champion Chris Moneymaker, who busted out 28th and was the bubble boy for this tournament. I wanted to bust him, or put a move on him, but I had a big stack to my left and could not get to him.

That was another thing about this tourney that I had to overcome. I had a huge stack to my left for a big portion of this tourney which severly limited what I could do in terms of even trying to steal blinds.