As promised, I would have done this earlier but forgot my HH at home, so I was not able to use company time to blog my recap. To be honest I needed them to figure out what the hell happened. I was playing this thing through child watching and dinner (thanks to MrsSnarf for not immediately divorcing me for playing poker through Sunday dinner), so to the tournament just kinda flew by and before I knew it we were at the money bubble. In fact this post maybe longer then the actual tournament, but why do you care, you're at work.
Since this was a single stack things moved pretty quickly early. I tried to play fairly tight early and steal when I could just to stay afloat. In fact I don't even no if I had a showdown in the first hour, maybe 1 or 2. First big hand came when I was Danked by Buddy. I raised with QQ and he shoved the rest of his shortish stack in with AQ and spiked an ace on the flop. This actually put me in a pretty bad spot, a few hands later with blinds at 50/100, UTG limps and there are folds to me OTB with KJos, figured this was a good spot to ship and did for 900. UTG calls with A7dd, I get lucky and flop a jack to get back to a workable chip stack. I was able to pick up some hands from there to the end of the break with a couple of raise and folds, then got a nice reraise in preflop with QQ got a call and took it down on the flop. Cruised into the break with about 3000, maybe a little above half the field.
Second hour pretty much went the same way, just playing snug and waiting. Picked up AA UTG and contemplated limping, but ultimately decided to raise 3x, 1010 behind me shoved and my rockets hold up to get me up to around 4500. The hand that really got things going came a little later. With blinds at 100/200, there were folds to me in the SB with KQ, I raise 3x and the BB just calls. Flop came a lovely KQ3 rainbow. I bet 800 into the pot of 1200, and get minraised back. I basically put him on a king at that point and decided to just call. The river is another offsuit 4 and I check with about 2400 behind, the BB bets 1600 into the pot and I push the rest in. He calls and shows AA, not what I was expecting at all. The river did not pair the board and I got myself up to 9K in chips. Shortly there after we reached the most agonizing money bubble that I've seen in a online tourny in a while. It wasn't even like there was a big money to be won, everything had just gone so fast to that point that everyone had a decent stack given the blinds. During this point of the tourny RecessRampage routinely pillaged my blinds while I had absolute ka-ka. Eight high, seven high, it was awesome. Finally after the money bubble broke, I picked up AJ in the BB and insta-called his 43rd shove from the button, it held versus his Q5, and I got up to about 14K.
Once at the FT, I was pretty quiet. Really didn't get much in the way of hands and wasn't trying to take on too much risk with a healthy stack and a coupla big stacks to my left. Things seem to go pretty quick down to 4, I can't say a remember much, but I know by the time we got there I was down to 4/4 with about 13K in chips. Just kind of treading water to get there. Once down to 3 handed I whittled all the way down to 9K, blinds at 1k/2k, before stealing some blinds then getting a double through Mookie with my A10 vs his Q10. This was really the story of the night, the times I needed to get my money in, I got it in with the best of it AND it held. Most importantly. Other then the KJ hand early, I don't remember getting it in behind. At this point I really thought if I got to HU I had a chance despite LexLuther's big chip lead.
Lex evetually takes out Mookie and at the start of HU I am outchipped 72K to 19K. I get uber lucky early and pick up KK just after I folded AJ to a 3 bet. Snuffy thinks I'm insane, but at that point I didn't feel like I need a race. Stupid maybe but I was confident I could find a better spot. My KK holds against his AJ and now I have a fighting stack. Unfortunately I go through a derth of crap hands and picking some bad spots. The bleed is slow, but effective and at this point I really started to feel like the match was slipping away. After making a bad play with AJ and just calling a 3 bet, I am left with only 23K or so in my stack. After trading chips for about the next 20 hands or so, the blinds are 800/1600 and he makes a raise to 5200, I reraise with the JackAce to 13K leaving me only about 13K behind. I honestly thought he would fold here, but he shipped, I cursed, and called. He tabled A9 and my hand holds. Just like that the matchswung to my favor, 52K to 38K. I balked up the lead when I raised 66 preflop, bet out and got reraised all in on a 10 high flop with two clubs. Now the chips are reversed of what they just were, 52 to 38. Shortly there after comes the crippling hand. I just called the 800 to complete with K7 OTB, he checks behind. The flop comes Ks6d7s. He bets out 3600, I decide at this point with a coupla spades to go for the minraise. He obliges by pushing all in and I call, he has K10, no spades and I hold. Now I am up 74K to 18K. At this point I just applied the pressure with any hand I was willing to go to bat with and eventually, got him all in with my KQ vs his Q5, and taking it down.
So there you have it. I played mostly nitty, got hands when I needed them and then didn't lose when I was a favorite. Really easy :) My luck this time around didn't come from uber suckouts, just getting the right cards at the right time. I will say had Lex played a more aggressive laggy game HU I would have had to majorly change gears and take more chances. Fortunatlely for me we had similar styles which allowed me to play the way I was most comfortable with. Lex I don't have your blog, leave a comment so I can link you. Won't be able to make tonight, but expect to play Skillz and Mookie this week. Thanks for all the congrats from the rail at the end.
Congrats Snarf!!!
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