O-Poker

I had a busy day yesterday. I had to take the day off from work because I was getting a new A/C put into my house and having a new sleeper couch delivered. After a very long and hot day(A/C was disconnected for most of the day while they were putting in a new one), I decided to play a couple of tourneys.

The first tourney that I played was a $25+$25 Katrina Relief Tourney on UltimateBet.com. I haven't played at UB for a while because they have had some server issues that caused disconnects and seem to cater most of their tourneys toward Aruba - not going to Aruba this year because baby is on the way. :-) UB used to be the only site that I played and after playing last night I remember why. The software is awesome, the people are great, and it has a home game feeling. I will have to start playing on UB more often. The tourney had just under 200 entries and paid 20 spots. I was freerolling late when I knocked out P0ker H0 to collect a $50 bounty. The tourney paid 20 spots and there were a lot of horrible players in it because of it being a charity tourney. I was doing pretty well until I tangled with the chip leader at my table. He was very aggressive and making some really, really loose calls. He had gotten very lucky several times. I made a pot sized raise UTG with AKs and the aggressive big stack went all in. I had seen him make this same move with AK-A10, and KQ, so I decided to take my chances at having a huge stack. He had put half his stack in with 44. His 44 held up and I was out around 40th. I was shocked that he bet so much of his stack with 44, but I guess I should have expected it. Oh well, I had fun and will probably start playing at UB again.

At 10 PM, I decided to play the $50+$5 NL tourney on PokerStars. There were 461 entries with 45 places paying. I had about 3,000 chips at the first break with 220 players remaining. As the tourney went on, I decided to play very tight. I made sure the table thought that I was playing extremely tight and thought that I was trying to hang on to make the money. It worked out well for me. I made some big re-raises and opening bets in position followed by continuation bets that paid off. As we got near the money, I was barely hanging on. I saw AQs UTG and moved all in for the last of my chips - I had about 5xBB in chips. A guy with A5s called off half his chips to almost triple me up including that antes and blinds. This allowed me to coast into the money a few hands later. A key hand came late, the blinds were 400/800 with 50 antes and I got KQc in the small blind. I had 8,200 chips. One guy limps, I call, SB checks. Flop is 4c5c2s. Check, Check, Check. Turn is the beautiful Jc. I check, BB bets 1,600, limper calls, I moved all in for another 5,800 hoping that I might get a call from someone holding the Ac or just take down the pot right there. BB folds. Limper thinks for a second and calls with Js10c and I'm sitting on 20k in chips.

I gradually increased my stack as we got down to 18. I stole the blinds with KJs by raising 3x the BB when we were down to 16 and the blinds were pretty huge. The very next hand, I get dealt AA UTG and raise 3x BB. My thinking was that since I had just won the blinds and antes uncontested that someone might try to push back this time. I was right. The SB made a huge bet and I waited for about 10 seconds and push all in. He immediately called with AK and I doubled up to around 75k. I had a pretty good table when we were down to 12. Everyone was pretty passive and I was picking up chips by raising and it was folded to my BB several times. When we were down to 10, I picked up AK and raised 4x BB. A guy with about 22k total in chips vs. my 76k went all in. I called. He had AJ. I was in great shape until the J on the river. I win that hand and I'm 2nd in chips at the final table.

A few hands later we are at the final table and I have about 60k in chips. My goals for the tourney were make the money, make the final table, and then take 1st. I had made the final table and was only going to play for 1st. The blinds were 3k/6k with 300 antes. Two times short stacks were all in with the worst hand against other players and managed to drag the pot. A few hands in, I get AK in the cutoff. UTG (big stack) limps. Folded around to me. I raise to 24k (about the size of the pot). BB thinks and then goes all in. Limper folds. I have to call my last 35k into a 100k pot. I thought for a minute and decided that I couldn't fold and I came to win. I called and he had QQ. QQ held up and I'm out in 9th for $391.85.

I was playing to win and put the last of my chips as a 43%+/- underdog getting 3-1 odds on my money. So, I can't complain.

cmitch - sportingimag