ONE STEP AWAY FROM THE BELLAGIO

Omaha was going a little sour tonight. The same freak cracked my pocket aces twice by calling from behind and then drew out on my trip jacks in the same go around and I decided to switch gears and play a tourney.

I was down to around $1,000 chips early on but was able to double up with AA and that lasted me until the first break. After the break I re-raised all in with KK v AJ and doubled up again. Another success was getting A9s all-in against my AA. I was the leader going into the final table mostly using my instincts on heads up action. For instance, I called a short stack with KT and he luckily had Q8. The biggest reason for my success was winning with AK just like McEvoy recommends. I knocked two other people out of the tournament when they showed me their weaker aces. I even folded AK once on the button with action in front of me.

With 7 players left and only 5 tickets, the chip stacks ranged from 8040 -12000. No coasting allowed. We had to play some poker. The chip leader lost 3/4 of his stack calling second pair with an ace on board. Weak! He got knocked out on the next hand trying to push his 43o. Now all we had to do was wait out the $7,000 stack. I had AKo on the button and folds all around. I almost mucked the doggone thing, because the short stack was already out, but decided to raise anyway and the blinds folded. He finally got knocked out with his AJ v QQ and the ticket was mine.

I won the ticket to this tournament way back in June when I played a $6 satellite for the heck of it. It's been sitting there for months and I finally decided to play it tonight during the baseball game. My Hold'em layoff I think helped me. I always play my best game after a break. There were exactly 50 players so 5 tickets and nothing for 6th place. Had there been 49 players I probably would have tanked in 5th place for the $400. I'll know after the $420 tourney whether I would have been better with that choice.