Nice Score

Yesterday, I played in some tourneys and had a nice score in the $32,000 guaranteed, $22 buy in, on stars. I finished 4th for a nice little payday. It is amazing what the thought of money does to a person. Even with the big score, all I think about is that if I outlasted one more guy, I would have made $1K more. If I would have won, I ship 4K more to the bank. Oh well though. I just need to thank God for the skill and luck involved with grinding through 1900 people for a 4th place finish.

I know I have said this before, but I don’t think I have played better poker than I did yesterday. The tournament lasted nearly eight hours and in the final four hours, I literally showed down only three hands. I did not show a hand during the fourth and fifth hours while increasing my stack. In the sixth hour, I had about 15 bbs and I pushed in the sb with Ks7d. The bb with 9 bbs auto calls with Kh9h. The flop comes KJ9 all diamonds. Turn X. River 5d! This put me above average. That would have almost crippled me. In the 7th hour, this crazy hand came up:

PokerStars Game #20615062726: Tournament #109499628, $20+$2 Hold'em No Limit - Level XXIV (8000/16000) - 2008/09/22 18:25:12 ET
Table '109499628 60' 9-max Seat #1 is the button
Seat 1: HotKarlMC (658413 in chips)
Seat 2: 52tigerback (399306 in chips)
Seat 3: CU_bball (165032 in chips)
Seat 6: St@r-K (457406 in chips)
Seat 7: NoKidding (333598 in chips)
Seat 9: moglie81 (278801 in chips)
HotKarlMC: posts the ante 1600
52tigerback: posts the ante 1600
CU_bball: posts the ante 1600
St@r-K: posts the ante 1600
NoKidding: posts the ante 1600
moglie81: posts the ante 1600
52tigerback: posts small blind 8000
CU_bball: posts big blind 16000
*** HOLE CARDS ***
Dealt to CU_bball [Ac As]
St@r-K: folds
NoKidding: raises 32000 to 48000
moglie81: folds
HotKarlMC: raises 107555 to 155555
52tigerback: raises 242151 to 397706 and is all-in
CU_bball: calls 147432 and is all-in
NoKidding: folds
HotKarlMC: folds
Uncalled bet (234274) returned to 52tigerback
*** FLOP *** [Ts 4s 8d]
moglie81 said, "wow"
*** TURN *** [Ts 4s 8d] [7d]
*** RIVER *** [Ts 4s 8d 7d] [Qh]
*** SHOW DOWN ***
52tigerback: shows [Kd Ks] (a pair of Kings)
CU_bball: shows [Ac As] (a pair of Aces)
CU_bball collected 540019 from pot
*** SUMMARY ***
Total pot 540019 Rake 0
Board [Ts 4s 8d 7d Qh]
Seat 1: HotKarlMC (button) folded before Flop
Seat 2: 52tigerback (small blind) showed [Kd Ks] and lost with a pair of Kings
Seat 3: CU_bball (big blind) showed [Ac As] and won (540019) with a pair of Aces
Seat 6: St@r-K folded before Flop (didn't bet)
Seat 7: NoKidding folded before Flop
Seat 9: moglie81 folded before Flop (didn't bet)

I went from the short stack at the table to chip leader at the table in that hand with 12 or 13 people remaining. I was up to 4th overall because the other table had a ton of huge stacks. Then I just grinded. I picked great stealing spots and made it all the way to four left. I was the short stack with 6 or 7 bbs. One person had just a little more than me (he ended up winning it) and no one had more than 20 bbs if I recall correctly. So it was anybody’s ballgame. It was folded to me in the sb and for the 3rd straight round of it folding to me in the sb, I had an easy push with 10 10. BB, calls with QJc. He flops a Q and I’m out in 4th. It was sweet to have a huge score, but to leave 4K out on the table is disappointing. Anything short of winning is a disappointment in poker…unless you suckout through an entire tournament and donk your way into a decent to big score, which we have all done in the past haha. I am extremely happy though overall and am ready to get on with my week.

I also shallow cashed in 3 out of 6 other tourneys yesterday including a 48th out of 1500 for a $10 win in a $3 tourney.

Edit: I played a $12 turbo and took 4th... I love those 4th's. I need to improve my 4 handed and smaller games.