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My best play of the night was cold calling A9s in late position with several limpers. The flop came 9 high with two of my suit. I bet about 40% of the pot and got one caller. My nut flush came on the turn and UTG checked to me. I paused and made a tepid 25% of the pot bet. He immediately raised. I paused again trying to make it seem that I had a good hand but was afraid of the flush. I let the clock run about halfway and then called. The river brought a 4th heart which isn't what I wanted, but I think my pause made UTG put me on a set or two pair and since the board was unpaired he went all in. I called to see his stone cold bluff. He had not one heart and the majority of his once big stack was mine. He was a decent player and full of praise for my play. I too praised his move that was a sure winner if I hadn't had the nuts.

I was chip leader with about 60 players left and then again with about 30 left. The problem I ran into is that I wound up at the table with all the other big stacks making it impossible to use the stack size to dominate the table. At the penultimate table I was about 8th in chips overall, but 9 of the top 10 chip holders sat at my table. The spread was pretty thin with the leader having around 53,000 and me down in 8th with about 42,000.

My exit was heart-breaking and showed a lack of patience on my part. With QQ under the gun, I made a 2x raise. Mid position made a 2x raise on top of that. I thought AA, KK or AK was probable, but even JJ and TT possible. The flop brought babies and I decided to check and see what he thought about it. He went all-in with about twice the amount of the pot. I've often seen this play with AK so I decided to call. He had KK.

Looking back, he must have feared the possibility that I had an Ace and didn't want me drawing for it. Maybe it was just one of those weak-strong plays. Either way, I didn't have to spend all my chips with QQ. I had enough chips to last for quite a while. But if I'm interested in any kind of chip count for the final table I don't see how I release that hand under the circumstances. I have left many a tourney with QQ clutched to white-knuckled hand and here is another example.