Frustrating Sunday stacks, Monday crushilation

So I came up short once again in the majors, but played pretty well overall. I ended getting decent stacks and going deep in both the stars 2nd chance and FTOPS, finishing 29th and 85th or so. I was a little bitter about ftops, as I shoved 11 BB's from utg+1 w/ 88 and some moron who had like 500 chips less then me called off his whole stack on the button with A10 sooooooted. nh sir. My stack was a little swingy, but I don't think it was due to my usual big stack carelessness but rather situations that dictated themselves. I've really been trying to work on managing my big stacks deep in tournaments as this can be a major leak in my game at times.

The stars 2nd chance looked like it was going to be the one for me, I had about 150k @ 2k-4k with about 40 people left which was the biggest stack/ best chance I have ever had in this tournament, and I was playing great. I then lost a big race for about 65k of my chips, and at 3k-6k I made a standard 2.7x BB raise w/ 77 and about 78k stack, the BB shoved me and I called and I lost a race to his QQ. So overall I was happy with my Sunday, if not my results then definitely my play and I used the momentum going into Monday.

So on the bubble of the afternoon 100 rebuys, I was 17/19 with a stack of 14k and the blinds of 1k-2k. The bubble was pretty intense as there were 2 guys who had under 3k and just kept folding hoping that someone else would make a mistake. At one point, the BB had 2k in pot and 500 chips behind and he folded hoping to survive his SB hand, which of course he did LOL. At one point I folded KdJd in the hi-jack with a chance to be 1st in the pot with my 7 BB's (normally an auto shove), but a fold because of 2 players having less then 1 BB. So we get into the money and I've successfully blinded down to 11k with the blinds going up to 1.5k-3k when I picked up QQ in the SB to double vs A2 and I was up to about 25k. Sweet!!!! Still 17/17 LOL.

My short stack ninja expertise would be the them of this tournament, as I never had more then one player covered if not dead last in chips until we got to the final table, and at the final table I had 45k at 2.5k-5k and was 9/9. Soon I was 8/8, then 7/7 and 6/6...minutes later 5/5 and eventually I got 3 handed and was of course in 3rd place with about 100k @ 4k-8k while my two opponents were both between 400k-500k. I eventually got my stack up to about 550k, and after playing really snug the final 3 tables and even once we got 3-handed I decided to make a play. I called a button raise (his stack about 350k, while sb had 180k or so) with J8o in the BB. I then check/raised his c-bet all-in on an AQ10r flop with a double gutter, he tanked until he had about 5 seconds left and finally called with A2 and I missed my draw. I eventually went out in 3rd place, and also finished 8th in the 50 rebuys losing a CL pot for 25%+ of chips in play with QQ vs AK all-in pre.

Not a bad start to the night, and I was super pumped for FTOPS, the 1k NL 6-max tourney. That didn't go so well, though I did hit a one outer early on ( I was also one outed in the 50 rebuy earlier, kind of odd). I had a steady stack of around 6k during the 1st 2 hours until the antes kicked in entering the 3rd hour. I was very swingy and was eventually out around 300th of 1200+ starters after flopping TPTK vs bottom set w/ only 13 BBs to start the hand.

I had been grinding along in the tilt 150, having 10 BB's at the 120-240 25a level, when after shoving 63hh pre and sucking out on A10, I found a little rush and began stacking chippies. I was also deep in the 150 on stars where I eventually finished 29th. With 27 left in Tilt, Apestyles and I were both top 5 in chips and running our individual tables over. He's a really good friend of mine and almost as sick as I am. When we got down to 2 tables I was not really happy to see him at my table. He brings out the best in me, but I still would have rather seen him at the final table and no sooner. We entered the final table 2nd and 3rd in chips, and ape had direct position on the chip leader ( I mean how good does he run?). The final table was sick stacked, with Jason Gray, xxRagedxx, projectsix, and bubbledav along with Ape and I, not to mention #1pen who finished 11th just short of the final table.

When we got 5 handed Ape and I were 1/2 in chips, and I thought for sure we would end up heads up. Unfortunately for him it wasn't meant to be as I started some retardedly sick poker and abusing the entire table including him. I was making alot of huge bluffs at all the right times and showing to tilt everyone, still they still didn't start looking me up light as expected. I don't have any hand histories and was too lazy to record live for www.pokerXfactor.com but it would have made a great video. I took 1st out of 542 runners for just over 20k and for the 2nd consecutive Monday I had a really great day of poker. Of course last Tuesday I followed it up by playing awful, and I haven't had a very good start today though not due to bad play. Hopefully I can avoid a repeat Tuesday performance after a welcomed Monday repeat.