Confidence booster

Well now that my laptop is gone I'm restricted to live play, but I have to say I'm relieved to be forced into a break from online poker. It really is hard to go a day without playing online if the opportunity's there. My little brothers and sister are in town for the week too so I'm planning on spending the next couple of nights hanging out with them.

Last night I actually took my 16 year old brother out to RC Fowlers for some free bar league poker. He lasted for most of the first hour but finally dropped out. I ended up taking 2nd. It was another Fowlers tournament where I got to the final table as a bigstack which makes it so much easier to move up in points. I had about 180k when the starting blinds were 5/10k.

I figured it was going to be a good game when I made a wheel on the very first hand. 2 or 3 limpers so I did too on the button with 45h. The flop came A 3 x and everyone checked. The turn was a 2. Kevin, Mr. Jager as I call him, led out for 1000 and the lady on my right just called. Now I know she's a terrible player who plays way too many hands early and goes for long shot draws like gutshots, etc. So instead of smooth calling I decided to pot it up to 3500 total. Kevin folded and the lady called after thinking about it for a few seconds. River was a 3, she checked, and I value bet 3000 fairly quickly and she called then mucked her cards when I showed her the straight. She went out within the next 5 hands on top pair Q with a 9 kicker (and she complains about bad free poker players HA!). I'm just glad I was able to get a hand to get some of that dead money before it was all gone.

The two big hands that boosted my stack bigtime were AT and AQ.

When were down to about 4 tables I just moved to a new table that was shorthanded with only about 6 players including me. So I get AT in mp, utg limps and I have about 32k with the blinds at 2k/4k; limper has me covered by less than 5k. This is a spot where I love shoving against players that are limping in with large portions of their stack. Even though I don't really know this guy, I know how most free players operate and I'd say 95% of the time people that limp/all in in these games are NOT doing it with AA KK QQ or AK. Most of the time it's hands like low suited Aces and face cards like KJ or KQ maybe even small pairs. They want to see a cheap flop and then go from there but once you raise them half their remaining stack it's like "fuck it" and they shove because they don't want to lay it down. ANYWAYS. I shoved and the guy called instantly and table KQ. The board bricked out and I doubled up to over 60k.

Then I get moved again and I see that Rob has a big stack. He's a very loose agressive player who likes to play a lot of flops and try to suckout gutshot straight draws and things like that. I've seen him amass chips very fast when he's hitting his hands. So I pick up AQ, the blinds are 3k/6k now. There's a short stack in the bb, Rob is in the sb with about the same amount of chips as me. I raise to 20k, Rob calls and the bb goes all in for less than the raise. Well the flop came Q high and Rob checked it. I went all in and he called, showing JJ in the hole. He got no help on the turn and the river and then BAM! I'm up to 145k. I took one more player out before making the final table which got me up to the 180k.

Final table was pretty uneventful. I really didn't get any hands and my plan was just to play super tight and not give any of my chips away so I could move up in points. The only real hand I had was 55 on the button, 6 handed and I had 75k in chips with blinds at 30/60k. UTG limps, I shove, the donk on my left who pissed away his big stack by calling all ins with 59s and 89s preflop shoves for 98k. Both the bb and the limper call. So I know I'm screwed at this point. Flop comes K 8 7. UTG shoves for another 40 or 50k and the bb calls. BB has 22, UTG has K9, Donk has A7o. I hit my miracle 5 on the turn, and then a 7 hits the river to boat me up. So I quaded up to 300k.

And that's pretty much the only hand I really played except for the final one where I was in the bb for 100k with Q6o, the sb is all in for 50k. We're 3 handed and the button shoves. It's either this hand or next hand b/c the blinds just doubled again. Button has AA and takes us both out. :) I had 11 blue chips as well for 550 bonus points so all in all a very good night out.

I just hope I didn't use up my good fortune b/c I'm going to need it for Friday's Clicks game where I need a top finish to qualify for the TOC next month. Wish me luck!