Finally something good to talk about......

Well there have been 2 things that my game has been missing that last few weeks that I have talked about here, a big performance in a huge tournament and and a win. Last night I got them both, finishing 4th in the FullTilt 1k for 26k and following that by winning the Pokerstars 10 rebuy marathon known as the 55k guarantee for about 13.5k. Both tournaments felt really good, and though I was a little disappointed with my performance at the 1k FT I do feel like a monkey was some what lifted off my back.

Like most tournies for me, the mid stages were a roller coaster for me. With like 5 minutes left @ 100-200 level, I had a very good stack around 12k when everything started going crazy. 1st A_Junglen shoves 1,900 from the button w/ 56o, I make a good call in the SB w/ A6cc thinking I was likely ahead of his range and to my delight he was dominated. Turn 5 no problem. No big deal, but then the guy to his immediate right raises to 720 @ 120-240 25a on the button with 2300 behind, I shove him with QK and he instacalls with Q10o. AKx flop, turn a J and instead of 18k I had 7.5k and was a little frustrated. 2 levels later, 140-280 25a and the cut-off opened for 800 or so, A_Junglen had just been abusing the fuck out of this player and made it 2300 w/ about 5k behind. Given how weak the c/o was in general, I knew AJ's range wasnt really tight and I re-shipped from the SB w/ JJ, losing 16k pot to AJ's KK. :( I still had about 4k and went into grind mode, eventually getting to the 15k mark when we hit the 250-500 50a level with about 50 people left.

Paying 27 spots, I just started going nutts attacking the bubble with very little restraint from any of the players at the table. I was actually pretty suprised by this, but who am I to complain? With 36 left and the official bubble arriving I was sitting top 5 in chips with 40k and blinds of 600-1200 with a 150a. My favorite time in poker is a bubble in a tournament with a large ante when I have a stack, and FullTilt is the best site online for this. When we hit the money at 27, I had gone from my 40k or so w/ 36 left to over 85k and I was the chip leader. I had almost no resistance on the bubble, though I did double a guy who had about 12k with A7 vs AQ. From 27 to the final table of 9 was alot of the same and I entered the final table as the chip leader with over 200k.

Playing for such big money, the final table play was very tight and the other big stack was 2 to my left and kept re-popping the fuck out of me. He was clearly going after me, and I had decent hands but never had anything I could 4-bet him pre-flop, and every decent hand I had when we would see flops would completely miss me. I don't think he was very good necessarily but he was fortunate to have picked his spots well. I spewed my way down to about 100k with 2k-4k when I lost a very key showdown. With 6 or 7 left and the blinds 2k-4k, a shorter stack how had just lost 1/2 his chips moved all-in for 42kish 2 off the button and I had A10 in the BB. From what I had observed, this player had been pretty tight, but I also felt he had to push alot of hands from this spot and at the laast second I decided to call. He flipped K9o, 1067 flop was good for me, turn brick, river 8 :(. If I win the pot I'm over 150k, instead I had to go into grind mode with 60k or so.

Fortunately for me, with 5 left the guy to my immediate left just kept folding every time I shoved his BB. This guy was a complete nit, folded his way down to 22k @ 4k-8k blinds before picking up AK and doubling. As you could imagine, I was not thrilled to look down to 88 in the BB when this player shoved my BB for like 45k. I had him covered barely, by like 3k, and with these blinds I couldn't fold 88, but I thought I was racing at best. He ended up flipping up 66, I held and 4 handed I had about 105k, vs 3 other guys who were between 220k-300k. NP, I've been here before and I know I will have to gambol soon and I'm generally good at picking my spots to steal while chipping up my short stack. Unfortunately I shoved 74k on button w/ J8hh at 4k-8k and missed vs SB's KK on Q10xA board, out 4th for $26,325. Disappointing considering the chip lead I brought to final table no doubt, but it felt good to have my 1st 5-figure score in a tournament with a buy-in greater then $20 since January.

After I busted in FTP, I was still in UB 11pm 100nl, the 55k and stars 100nl @ 1am. I made a really poor shove pre-flop of a chronic limper w/ 88 for 22 BBs at 200-400 from the c/o with 88 and only the SB having having me covered and of course he woke up to 1010. I finished like 17th in the UB which was good enough to make the $, all be it I probably cashed for like $150 bux only. Then there was the 55k domination, which I am going to write about later because I don't feel like putting forth the effort I'd like at this time while playing. Lastly, really looking forward to the 1k Super Tuesday on stars tonight...one time be the suck out god that you are in a big buy-in on stars BeL0W.