Again I'd like to thank those who sweated me to my biggest tournament cash ever. To put it in perspective, I started the day with a bankroll of about $1400 and finished it with a bankroll of $6K.

On the whole I have to say that I was very lucky throughout the tournament as is anyone who final tables a tournament. I seemed to have won most of my coinflip hands and although I only got my money in behind twice and sucked out once, I consider lucky that I was fortunate enough to win the hands I put my money ahead on just about every occasion.

I spent the first couple of hours slowly building my stack and was actually amazed at how poor the play was for the most part in a $100 MTT. It was actually more passive than the lower buy-ins have become, but many of them were not folding so it actually was profitable to just sit back like a rock and wait for a hand.

At one point about halfway through I ran 77 in MP into AA slowplayed in the BB and was chopped in half and became a short stack.

With the blinds 200/400 I was in push mode with barely 4K remaining. I won a coinflip with [Jd] vs pocket 9's when I flopped a FD+2overs and rivered the flush. I doubled up again and got to 20K when my AA beat QQ. I got to 35K and put myself among the chip leaders when I flat called an aggressive player's raise OTB w/ 99. Flop came 3 relatively uncoordinated unders and the player pushed. I went into the tank shortly and called. He had AJo and I held up.

Now we come to the hand that made me chip leader for the 1st time with 64 left. Before this hand I was almost assured of a cash and it was THE KEY hand of the tournament.
Blinds were 500/1000 with 125 ante
http://www.pokerhand.org/?875830
Button was TAG and was playing pretty much how I was so basically I had to ask myself what I would have been playing that way in that spot. I really went into the tank on the turn and checked because I really didn't know what he had. Once I took him off KQ because I didn't think he'd call and EP raise with that hand I had to either put him on AK or a set. If I pushed and lost this hand I wouldn't have even cashed. I ended up check-raising him at the last second and once he took a decent amount of time to respond I was just about positive he had AK. I gambled a little bit where I thought I had to in order to win and was rewarded big time.

As I stated in the other thread, after this point people began to respect my raises less because I was the chip leader even though I wasn't really getting out of line. After the 3rd push in response to my PFR I ran into this hand vs a short stack. I called partially out of frustration and partially because I was getting 2-1 and his range was large. I should have remembered that this was the same player who had the Aces to my 7's in the BB as well. I was dominated, but had my only real suckout of the tournament.
http://www.pokerhand.org/?875851

I put myself over 90K for the 1st time when I called an UTG shortish push with 99 OTB. He had 88 and again I was fortunate not to be setted.

The next interesting hand took place just after I was moved to a new table. I had [Th] in the BB and was min-raised by UTG. I flopped a flush and had to try to figure out how to get all his money without scaring him off, but without giving him a free draw if he had . I went for the min-c/r on the flop. Didn't work. Any better ideas?
http://www.pokerhand.org/?875861

This is the hand that gave me the chip lead pretty late in the tournament with 2 tables left. I had position on the chip leader at the time when he raised. This was probably my favorite hand, or 2nd favorite with the AJ one, of the tournament.
http://www.pokerhand.org/?875873
I played it like a FD on the flop. I figured I could rep the flush, but also if he had a hand and I hit a 4 I knew I was going to double up so I actually figured I had a lot of outs here. The flush came on the turn and I tried to play it ike a flush betting enough that I hoped he would fold, but trying to make it look like I might want him to call. It worked.

We seemed to play forever at 15/14 handed and at one point last place had 71K and 1st had 170K so it was really anybody's game and stayed that way until we got around 5 handed and one player took a big lead.

This hand, still at 2 tables, may have been my only mis-play of the entire tournament. I erred on the side of extreme caution and actually, in the end, I think it worked out because I did go on deep into the final table.
I had KK in MP 7 handed. He may have pulled a move on me that I pulled with the 4's, but he could have had a Jack.
http://www.pokerhand.org/?875895
I didn't like that on the turn because if he didn't have me beat then it gave him a lot more possibilities. He could have AK, AJ, JJ, TT....so many possibilities and even AK has some outs against me. That bet amount on the turn was enough to pot commit him. That wasn't a feeler bet because it left him 30K. I'm sure the can be debated, especially here, but I felt there was a big enough chance that I was putting my money in with only 2 outs that a fold might have been the best play here because I still had chips.


I went over 200K for the first time with this hand. Nothing fancy here, although I did have a good feeling that they both mighta had AK or at least a common over and neither had AA when the original raiser took too long to fold. Flop did hit him hard though and I had to dodge some bullets.
http://www.pokerhand.org/?875915

Final table was mostly raise 3-bet fold or raise fold without many flops. I remember playing for a while 8 handed until people started dropping. I'm sorry to say I didn't do much in the way of attention grabbing moves, but just held my own with mostly a well timed steal here and there. My biggest one was with T7s in SB after I had been quiet for a few rounds. I had to put about 1/2 my stack on the line for that one but it worked. I had become tied for low stack and felt it was necessary at that point.
http://www.pokerhand.org/?875935

I did catch QQ and JJ once 5 and 4 handed respectively, but with no action.

Final hand: Unspectacular. I was being blinded down and had to push with a low M.
HA - I didn't even notice he flopped the straight. I just thought it was a flush draw and was pissed that the 9 on the river was a diamond. I guess it was kinda spectacular after all. LOL
http://www.pokerhand.org/?875946

Wow. Great game, man.