Posted January 23rd, 2008 by phillau
A sunny Saturday afternoon's good for 2 things, going out with
my dog, and staying in to play some good'o onlne poker. So
there I was, sitting on my bed, clicking away on my laptop.
That's the beauty about online poker uno, I don't even need to
get out of bed! So back to the topic, I reg'ed myself in a
$100+9 tournament on PS, and the total headcount was 357.
Starting chipstack was 1500, which I like much more than the
3000 of those larger tournies. Why? I'll come back to it later.
I figured I don't really need to play for a while, So I fell
back onto my pillow and set an alarm that reads "30 minutes
later".
When I woke up, I was down to 1380 chips, which was completely
cool. I checked my hands history (which is my habit after
sitting out for an extended period), and found to my relieve
that the best hand I folded was just KK. Yay! I did NOT yonk
away rockets! Now given that I could care less about my stack
in the early stage of a game, this is completely cool. I
figures I'll start playing as we've just headed into the 3rd
level blinds of 25/50.
As this game is about grinding, and no one's ever interested in
reading about grinds, I'll skip to the fun part. I was up to
72000 chips with 12 guys left, and bubble was at 36, so I was
way in the money. I was also 2nd place in chips in the tourny.
Let's put our thinking caps on, the total chips in play was
1500 * 357 = 535,500. I owned 13% of the chips in play, so I
figured there's no flipping way I was not making this final
table. Oh, and a 5 minutes break was coming up. I figured I
needed to take my dog out for a walk before I get into this
final table which could be a stretch (yes, I love my dog and
yes, a sunny Saturday afternoon). I estimated my walk to be
around 15 minutes, so I'll be losing 10 minutes of action. I
was guessing my stack to be down to around 65k when I returned
(blind will be 1500/3000 with ante 150). So I headed out.
When I returned, I was (a) very surprised that my count was
down to 59k; and (b) staring at pocket Kings. I was like
"sweet, I can make it back in just this hand." Well, not quite,
my KK was cracked by a donkilicious all-in and the guy hits a
straight with his JK. All of a sudden I was down to 39000
chips. That's a big blow. However, I didn't panic. And in no
time, thru tactical blinds stealing and raises and reraises, I
rebuilt my stack up to 109000, and by the time this deed is
done we're down to 6 handed, and I was 3rd in chips. The rest
of it came pretty naturally as I took out the 3rd guy to get
into heads up.
Heads up play lasted about 10 hands, with the opponent taking a
"I'll let u nibble and wait for a good hand" game. Well, I like
those players, they're so dang predictable. Not only are they
predictable but they're also self-defeating. They encourage me
to raise with garbage I can improve on, and when I do hit my
garbage against their genuine hands, bingo! That's exactly what
happened. I raised to 3x BB* with small suited connectors and
managed to catch my straight on the turn. The guy ran into a
wall. He couldn't lay down his top pair high kicker. Game
Finished. I won. I picked up close to $9000USD for the win,
and it was a Saturday afternoon well spent (AND my dog got the
walk he wanted).
So, that was a good outing, and I'm hoping to ride the momentum
and cash more larger games.
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* FTW = For The Win
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