10/354

I am still in Orlando with plenty to blog, but last night I played my first profitable tournament in some time, so I'm still thinking about it. It was a $100 short-handed double-stacked MTT at Full TIlt. It definitely played to my strengths with the $3k starting stack and six-handed tables. My major malfunction in MTTs is that I am always playing as if the table is six-handed and that is a bad strategy with eight or nine others at the table. I knew just what to do in this one.

I pretty much just played on a treadmill for the first hour, taking down small pots and awaiting my big moment. The moment arrived when I flopped a set versus an overpair and a top pair who thought it might be good. I tripled up to $9k and it was smooth sailing until I got the dreaded KK v AA. Yes, it awaits even at the short-handed tables. I raised from early position and was instantly reraised. My spidey sense kicked in and I just got the idea I was against aces, even if the odds suggested I wasn't. So, I called and took a flop, determined to play the hand for less than my entire stack.

The flop came J64 as expected. I checked and he bet as expected. I called, hoping to slow him down if he was sitting on AK, but still interested in keeping my stack out of the middle. The turn was another jack, which gave me a new idea. He may be sitting on aces, but he may have AK or QQ or even KK or something inferior. One thing I doubted he had was quad jacks. Well, only the aces had me beat, so that second jack gave me a little fold equity against the rockets since I had him outstacked. I pushed all in and put him into the tank. He came out calling and showed his aces and took the pot, knocking me back down under $3k. In retrospect, a better strategy would have been to make a smaller bet on both the turn and river, which he surely would have called with aces, but would have saved me some dough in the end.

It always sucks to run kings into aces but it stings a little extra at a short-handed table. I managed to play well and get myself back into the running. I coasted past the bubble and stagnated for awhile before beginning my downward spiral. I was last in chips with 24 remaining, but even that situation was remedied when I tripled up with queens. It got down to two tables and I was doing fine but with the monster chip leader at my table looking to take down every pot. This is my exit:

Ten players remaining, I've got chips but all the chips at our table are slowly being reassigned to the chip leader who is playing the bully. I got involved in a hand with KQ and the flop came J96. Chip leader bet into a three-way and I made the call with my ten outs. He may have a pair but he may not the way he is playing. If I managed to hit a K or Q or hopefully a T then I might effect a double up leading into the final table. The turn was another 6 putting a third heart on board. This time when he bet, I pushed all in. I had no reason to doubt he had a jack at this point, but if he did, it certainly wasn't a heart, and he may not be enjoying his kicker. I had hearts, kings, queens, and tens to fall back on should he call which put me just under 40% to suckout if necessary. He thought for awhile but wound up calling with his black J7. It must have been the curiosity factor alone that lead to that call coupled with the fact that he had chips to spare. I don't know how he could have thought it was good, but it was and I was out when the river bricked.