I had planned on finishing this story today, but an amazing thing has happened the last 2 days. I've had 16 pocket pairs turn into 4 flopped sets and I've lost all of them. The last was the worst as it would have put me top 5 stacks with 70 left in a tournament that paid 27. Even worse, the flop was 27J rainbow where there was nothing out there, but an inside straight draw. Turn T, River A and guess what he had.

Anyway, on the A8 hand I posted here, there would have been more money in the pot, but my odds would have been less because I would have to beat 2 opponents instead of 1.

Really quickly, w/ the blinds catching up UTG raised 3xBB, I heard the bell ring for the hike in blinds and it made my decision to push [9s] much easier even though I was almost sure I was behind. He turned over A6off and I hold up to double up. We are 5 handed when I pick up AJ UTG and steal the blinds. BB had a tough decision folding, but admited he had a smaller Ace when I told him I had a big Ace.

Down to 2 tables and I take the blinds in back to back hands with early pushes with A9 and JJ.

Funny story, the SB in the JJ hand puts on his sunglasses and stares me down. After about 30 seconds of this I asked him if he even knew what the hell he was looking for. He said he was looking to see if I was bluffing. I told him to let me know when if he finds what he's looking for. Some people just watch too much TV and like to look stupid. I could have showed this jackass my cards and he'd still have no clue what he was looking for.

Blinds move up to 500/1000 and I have about 6500 left in the SB. MP who had not played a hand in the 20 minutes I'd been at the table pushes in for 10,300. I have 77. I've played with this guy once before and he didn't play a damn hand that time either. I can't give up pocket 7's with 6xBB left. Damn it!!! But this guy was ultra tight. The best I think I coulda hoped for was AQ with that move. He may do that with 6's, but that has got to be the ONLY hand I'm far ahead of here. I'm WAY behind most of his possible holdings. A looser or even unknown player I'm pretty sure I would have called, but I ended up folding.

I get moved to the other table with 12 left. Immediately there is a fight between 2 idiots that had been going at it since the beginning of the night, or so I had heard. Their arguement about one not paying off the other's all-in entirely in the previous hand, which was bulls*** went on for 5 minutes before we even played a hand. And when we did I was UTG w/ KJ and 3300 left w/ the blinds at 1000/2000. I had to push and got called by A8. Finished on the bubble at 9th in an MTT that paid 8.