Still can't cash at the cardroom

There's a cardroom about 30 minutes from my apartment that holds 3 $500 freeroll tournaments a week where you only pay a $10 dealers fee and first place is like $250. It's great value because it's only two tables so I'll play them every once in a while. I've played in at least 5 of them and I still can't seem to cash. I always seem to manage 5th or 6th. That's what happened last night.

When I got to the final table blinds were 100/200 and I had 2400 chips which was slightly above average for what everyone else had. It still wasn't much compared to the blinds though.

I waited for almost a whole round before I open shoved KQ under the gun. Everyone folded. The next hand utg raises to 700, two players call in middle position, a short stack in late position goes all in for 300. I look down at two black aces and shove. It really was perfect timing considering I just shoved the hand before. The original raiser folded but both the MP players called. They had A8o and JTs, the short stack had KT. Board came K J x K x. Short stack won his small main pot and I got my stack up to 4800.

So then I'm on the button and wake up with AQ. The guy on my right who had a comparable chip stack to me raises to 600. I don't have a good feeling about this, but I can't fold AQ. I could reraise but I haven't played with him long and he hasn't really seemed out of line. Besides it would be bad to reraise with the intention of folding considering my stack size. So I call and so does the big blind. Flop comes Q x x with two hearts. Pretty much what I was looking for. BB checks, cutoff raiser bets 600. I raise to 2100, bb folds, cutoff shoves and I call. Ouch, he shows my QQ for top set.

That knocked me back down to 1200. I was able to shove and steal blinds a few times. I got called by K7o when I had QJs and I made a flush on the river to double. Then my best hopes for cashing were dashed when I pushed TT, got called by 99 and he spiked a 9 on me.

I had a lot of fun though, the guys there are a pretty friendly group. Most of them are pretty young and a few sounded like they were entrepreneurs. I talked to a named LJ about downloading music because he was carrying a laptop around with him while he played. But he mentioned something about buying a gift shop in Leander.

I also finally met Jason Dick from 101X. He's easily the funniest person in the mornings in Austin. I started emailing him a while back because he talks about how he likes poker on the air, and we're about the same age. One of the last times I was at this cardroom I told people I was a weekend DJ and someone said that he's been known to come to that room on occasion. Sure enough he showed up last night and I was happy to get the chance to meet him in person after emailing him a number of times over the last year.

After I busted I went downtown to see a friend from college spin at Plush. Had 3 one dollar lonestars between 10 to 11pm. Stayed until about 12:30 house stepping. The guy has great taste in music. The DJ's he opened for do a funk, soul, boogie night every Friday there and I'm definitely going to go back. It's free and a damn good time.