SECOND WIN

I was looking for a game this morning but there weren't many options. I had spent the past two days blowing money on small stakes SNGs, having no luck at Hold'em and no skill at the other games. I should have spent a few hours in a cash game but I just wanted some MTT action so I joined a $30 game at PokerRoom.

I wound up 1/194 for $1746. I had no cards early and wound up calling all in with tens and tripling up. I then pushed my A7c on the turn against a guy representing an overpair on a board of 3769 when the turn brought a fourth club. He called with JJ and I hit my club on the river. I actually had five extra outs with the aces and sevens so I took a shot out of position hoping for some fold equity which in reality wasn't there. I played fairly conservatively, preflop raising here in early position with a suited ace just to mix up my game and get into the action.

I didn't contend many pots overall until the bubble when I went nuts. It paid ten and when it was two tables and we began playing shorthanded, I switched gears and got a ton of chips. Then I lost a bunch of them when I finally got played back at when I had AA and I fell to the K6 suckout.

I went back to grinding and the more chips I got, the more I would loosen my raising requirements and the more chips I picked up. I had to fold to reraises a couple of times but I was chipping up overall. A few times I was priced into a call from an all-in reraise and each time it turned out I was dominated. So I hovered around $30k and couldn't score a breakaway pot. I got to the final table with about $24k and tightened up mostly with a few stabs at the blinds which worked out.

I got AA twice at the FT and both times I wound up with quads. One classic hand had me up against KK with all the money in preflop and the flop came AKA, also known as The Nuts. I think I knocked out my final six opponents. I had a huge chip lead heads up but he picked up KK and I got it all in with a four flush and two overs only to double him up and bring him even. I stayed aggressive and took back the momentum. Half a dozen hands later, he played back at me with Q9 while I had JJ and that was the final hand.