Poker tourney victory!!

whoa, i played in my second poker tournament at work last night and come out the big winner!! i guess watching WSOP on tv and playing some home games come in handy, after all... a brief recap is in order:

there were 33 players in the tournament spread out across four tables. each player started with a chip count of 500 and blinds started at 10/20 and going up every 15 minutes.

i don't really remember too much from the first table. the key there was doubling up pretty early. i had KXs, called pre-flop and called after the flop came out with a flush draw. i hit my last spade on the turn and i think we checked all around. another K came up on the river, so i went all in and got a call from someone who had two pair (KQ). that let me bleed away some chips for a while and bet a little more aggressively.

eventually, we merged into three tables. i kept bleeding away chips as the blinds rose and had maybe two or three big blinds left with the blind coming my way, so i was forced to go all in with T9s. not ideal.. i think i hit my T on the flop, but my opponent hit an A, so i needed a T or 9 and caught a 9 on the river!

that brief win gave me a little bit of breathing room, but i soon found my self shorter stacked with only a few big blinds left. i was dealt pocket 6's and called. the next two players went all in. it was getting pretty late, so i figured i'd just call even though i'd probably lose. i was probably up against 3 or 4 overcards, if not a higher pocket pair. turns out it was worse than i thought... first player flipped up AX and the other showed pocket K's, so i pretty much needed a 6 to survive. flop came up an A and the turn was no help. pretty much prepared to be beaten, but then i caught a 6 on the river!! was going to declare 6's my new lucky hand, but i guess having 666 as your lucky set isn't a great thing

along the way we merged into two tables before eventually had to re-seat at the final table of 8. i'd say i was pretty much mid-pack at that point. after one player got knocked out, i picked up pocket K's, called it, got two players to go all in pre-flop, and covered both of them. how ironic now i was playing the pocket K's against 5's and an AX. luckily for me, the percentages played out this time and my K's prevailed! so i knocked out two players and we were down to 5. after we lost another player, i was dealt bullets, called pre-flop, checked after the flop, and got an all in from the short stack. i think he had paired something up, but i was way ahead and knocked him out.

so down to three players... the chips were pretty evenly distributed, something like 6.5k, 6.5k, 3k. i raised pre-flop with A3o, got one call, and a fold from the short stack. flop came up 89T. i think it went check-check. turn came up a J. i promptly went all-in. there was about 8k in the pot with 4k coming to the other player... if he called, whomever won the pot (presumably him since i'd probably need an A) would be a huge favorite to win. after long deliberation, he folded. later i found out he had pocket K's and was about to go all in before i beat him to the punch. that was my only real outright bluff of the day and it was definitely fortunate!

down to two players... it was a little intimidating since the other player is 2nd on the leaderboard of money winners. he was betting pretty aggressively and taking my blinds and small raises/calls. i was down to about 4k in chips and bet 2k pre-flop. he went all in.. i figured i was beat with my K3o, but what the heck.. i was running out of chips. so i called. he was showing AX. the flop was turned over one at a time.. i hit my K!! but then he hit his A so i needed a K or 3... turn was no help.. but then hit my 3 on the river!! that was huge... from the brink of defeat to even stacks. shortly after, i was dealt pocket rockets again... first action was to me and i just called, he came back all in, so i quickly called and my A's stood up to his K9o.

phew.. that was a really long post for a really long night.. took like 3.5 hours to finish the tournament, 3 bailouts on the river, and 3 slowplays of huge pocket pairs at the final table that knocked out four players. but hey, i'll take it. i just owe ruth and andrew dinner since i told them i'd take them out to dinner if i managed to win some money.. hehe

WHEEEEEEEEEEEEE!