Final Tabled it again .. but ugh

So last night started much like the night before - a rough run on the cash tables with hands that were close and ended up costing me a lot of money, for the most part. There were still a few big pots I took down and good plays I made based on reads that worked out. Either way, I ended up down 40 bucks, so it was MTT time again.

Again, started strong in all 3. I don't remember how I went out on the first two, but I seem to remember one cooler and one suckout and then a tilt shove and blah blah blah. Good times.

Once again, the 3rd one I signed up for was the big weener.

I actually got off to a rough start when I raised AK behind a MP limper and ended up blowing almost 1/4 of my stack trying to convince him his 33 was no good. It didn't work :/

Then I got some help from KK UTG+1 and took it down on a 7 high flop.

The very next hand, I get 88 UTG.

PokerStars Game #14020064678: Tournament #71163600, $4.00+$0.40 Holdem No Limit - Level II (15/30) - 2007/12/22 - 03:55:54 (ET)
Table 71163600 7 9-max Seat #8 is the button
Seat 1: RAYHOVA83 (1820 in chips)
Seat 2: crushmastac (1330 in chips)
Seat 3: SwitchMan70 (9605 in chips)
Seat 4: newp05-33 (4050 in chips)
Seat 5: Tinlizzy49 (1190 in chips)
Seat 6: Love_Juanda (2800 in chips)
Seat 7: StEal LoOt (670 in chips)
Seat 8: textilex (1470 in chips)
Seat 9: Big Dave B (1465 in chips)
Big Dave B: posts small blind 15
RAYHOVA83: posts big blind 30
*** HOLE CARDS ***
Dealt to crushmastac [8d 8h]
crushmastac: raises 90 to 120
SwitchMan70: folds
newp05-33: folds
Tinlizzy49: folds
Love_Juanda: folds
StEal LoOt: folds
textilex: folds
Big Dave B: folds
RAYHOVA83: calls 90
*** FLOP *** [9d 5s 3s]
RAYHOVA83: bets 1700 and is all-in
Um, wtf? This has got to be weak.
crushmastac: calls 1210 and is all-in
*** TURN *** [9d 5s 3s] [Qc]
*** RIVER *** [9d 5s 3s Qc] [Qs]
*** SHOW DOWN ***
RAYHOVA83: shows [5c Kh] (two pair, Queens and Fives)
Well played sir.
crushmastac: shows [8d 8h] (two pair, Queens and Eights)
crushmastac collected 2675 from pot

Then this hand really got me rolling.


PokerStars Game #14020086101: Tournament #71163600, $4.00+$0.40 Holdem No Limit - Level III (25/50) - 2007/12/22 - 03:58:31 (ET)
Table 71163600 7 9-max Seat #2 is the button
Seat 2: crushmastac (2600 in chips)
Seat 3: SwitchMan70 (9060 in chips)
Seat 4: newp05-33 (4050 in chips)
Seat 5: Tinlizzy49 (1190 in chips)
Seat 6: Love_Juanda (2750 in chips)
Seat 7: StEal LoOt (1880 in chips)
Seat 8: textilex (1470 in chips)
Seat 9: Big Dave B (1400 in chips)
SwitchMan70: posts small blind 25
newp05-33: posts big blind 50
*** HOLE CARDS ***
Dealt to crushmastac [Kh Ad]
Tinlizzy49: folds
Love_Juanda: folds
StEal LoOt: folds
textilex: folds
Big Dave B: calls 50
crushmastac: raises 150 to 200
SwitchMan70: calls 175
newp05-33: folds
Big Dave B: calls 150
*** FLOP *** [8h Jh 3c]
hootagh is connected
SwitchMan70: bets 150
Big Dave B: calls 150
crushmastac: calls 150
No way I'm raising here. But he's priced me nicely for my draw.
*** TURN *** [8h Jh 3c] [Ts]
SwitchMan70: bets 300
Big Dave B: calls 300
crushmastac: calls 300
I call this somewhat reluctantly. I was getting almost 7 to 1 I think (too lazy to do math right now)
*** RIVER *** [8h Jh 3c Ts] [Qd] ZING!!!
SwitchMan70: bets 800
Big Dave B: calls 750 and is all-in
crushmastac: raises 1150 to 1950 and is all-in
SwitchMan70: calls 1150
*** SHOW DOWN ***
crushmastac: shows [Kh Ad] (a straight, Ten to Ace)
SwitchMan70: shows [8c 9d] (a straight, Eight to Queen)
Interesting...
crushmastac collected 2400 from side pot Ship
Big Dave B: shows [Th 9h] (a straight, Eight to Queen)
Thankyou for not raising the turn.
crushmastac collected 4250 from main pot Shhhhhiiiiiiiip!


I then proceded to go completely card dead for several orbits, but I still managed to stay in the top 20 for chips.

Finally I pick up KQo in mid position and raise it up getting called by the BB. Flop comes A high with 2 hearts (I have the K of hearts). He checks, I cbet, he calls. Uh oh. Turn comes Jh and all a sudden I have a big draw. He checks, I check behind opting for the free card since I'm pretty sure I'm in a bad spot here where bluffing is a bad idea. The river brings the beautiful 7 of hearts, he checks again, I make a fairly small valueish bet, and he takes his time to fold. That was a T4000 pot that took me close to 5 figures and into the top 5 for chips.

The next 40 hands were awesome. Players started falling left right and center and I ran completely dry. I kept picking spots and watching for the players that didn't defend their blinds and managed to actually chip up to 13K despite being completely card dead.

Then I got a bit lucky when a shorty shoved into me in the SB and I snap-called with A7. He had AJ but I ran a flush on him to take a nice pot and move to 14K.

The very next hand I bounce another shorty when I put him in from the SB with AK and he calls with AQ and I hold. 16K

Then AK whiffed in a massive pot and I dropped 7K to 10K.

At this point I was at a very tight table with nobody having a vpip higher than 30, and most players ran something like 20/5/0.5. Yeah... Unfortunately for me, during the next 10 orbits I didn't pick up one attractive hand with the exception of JJ. But with the table being so tight, I was able to steal and resteal with abandon, chipping back up to 20K without showing a single hand.

The JJ hand happened with about 12 people left.


PokerStars Game #14021196219: Tournament #71163600, $4.00+$0.40 Holdem No Limit - Level XI (500/1000) - 2007/12/22 - 06:19:22 (ET)
Table 71163600 7 9-max Seat #2 is the button
Seat 2: crushmastac (22501 in chips)
Seat 4: Gooseters (9640 in chips)
Seat 5: maryo124 (55013 in chips)
Seat 6: Love_Juanda (13041 in chips)
Seat 8: ImSoLow (34811 in chips) is sitting out
Seat 9: mars411 (11911 in chips)
crushmastac: posts the ante 100
Gooseters: posts the ante 100
maryo124: posts the ante 100
Love_Juanda: posts the ante 100
ImSoLow: posts the ante 100
mars411: posts the ante 100
Gooseters: posts small blind 500
maryo124: posts big blind 1000
*** HOLE CARDS ***
Dealt to crushmastac [Jd Jh]
Love_Juanda said, "one more?"
Love_Juanda: folds
ImSoLow: folds
mars411: raises 10811 to 11811 and is all-in
He'd been opening into panic mode with his M getting low
crushmastac: raises 10590 to 22401 and is all-in
Gooseters: folds
maryo124: folds
*** FLOP *** [7d 6h 6d]
*** TURN *** [7d 6h 6d] [3s]
*** RIVER *** [7d 6h 6d 3s] [7h]
*** SHOW DOWN ***
mars411: shows [4s Ah] (two pair, Sevens and Sixes)
crushmastac: shows [Jd Jh] (two pair, Jacks and Sevens)
Love_Juanda said, ".."
crushmastac collected 25722 from pot <------- Ship!


This was by far the tightest final 20 I'd ever had to endure. So when we finally got to the final table, we were well past the blind levels from the tournament I won the night before. Everyone's M was low, but I went on a heater at a good time.

When we got to the final table everyone had 10-45K in chips. I was sitting on 40K with 3 other stacks around mine, and a couple shorter (but not unplayable) stacks.

In my heater I knocked out 3 of the first 5 to go.

First player out was a shorter stack that open shoved A5 into my QQ which held.

A couple eliminations later, I get it in with 88 preflop and win a race vs AJ.

After this we had the tightest final 4 I'd seen in ... ever. I felt great because I had good reads on all 3 of them, and the stacks looked like this:

Me: 125K
ELSO: 62K
Maryo: 45K
LoveJuanda: 36K

Then all hell broke loose.

Every freaking hand I had a top 20% hand. A8, AT, AJ, 88, 55, KJ, etc. I even got JJ, KK and AA. Every time I raised, and every time I wanted to get played back at, I didn't. When I didn't want to get played back at, I did. I ran AJ into AK, A8 into AT, and a bunch of other bad spots. I don't think I got my money in good once.

So in the period of only 20 hands I went from in good shape to win the whole thing again, to being crippled.

The hand that did me in was T7 soooted. Getting a bit tilty, I checked in the BB and saw a 726 flop with 2 spades. He min bet, I raised the pot, he called. Turn was the 3s. He checked, and I decided there was no flush and I didn't want to let him draw with a hand like As Kx, As Qx, etc... So I made a tilty jam that was probably a bad idea, and of course he had As4s for the made nuts and IGH in 4th place and a headache.

I spent a lot of time thinking about my play, and I can only pick out two hands I played badly. I just got unlucky to keep getting top 20% hands and run them into top 10% hands over and over again. It was sickening because all throughout the time I'd spent with these guys in the last 80 hands I had them totally under my thumb.

Bleh.

The 60$ cash was a small consolation prize. I shoulda won the damn thing.

Cya later.