Back into Poker

Well I know i have been a little remiss about blogging but yesterday was the first day i have played poker in over 2 weeks. I played 3 small tournaments yesterday 5.50, 11.00 and 8.80 at UB, Pokerstars and FT respectively. In all 3 i busted out before the money. But as in life, tomorrow was another day. I ran some errands and ate lunch and settled in for an evening of poker.

I played 4 tournaments thursday 4/26. The first was a 5.50 tourney on full-tilt. Nothing too remarkable in the tourney, i got my money in with the worst of it 2 times. 99 vs JJ and AQ vs Ak and that was that.

I also played the 5.50 rebuy tournament on Pokerstars. Again the Total prizepool was greater than their 25k guarantee. I ended up spending 27$ in the tournament and near the end of the rebuy i had 14,000+ in chips. i proceeded to make my way through the huge 1847 player field. The big hands were coming, but i could'nt seem to get paid off. AA, KK, and QQ all got me the blinds and little else,even though people would call all their chips with JT and A8, i could not take any big pots. Then came the Quads.....I limped in from early position with TT and got 3 callers for a pot of 550. the Flop came Tc Ts 8c......i flopped quads and since there was a flush draw i figured i'd bet and hope someone would come over the top. Stupid idea on my part, the Check was the right play, but i got caught up in the rebuy mindset. I should have checked and let someone catch up and then they would have pushed. I sat dumbfounded on why i had bet out for the rest of the rebuy period.

When the real tournament started i had 21K and i hit enough hands to get close to the money bubble and then i tightened up. I finally made a move with 260 players left and the blinds increasing. The 244th-342nd paid 32.61....but i wanted much more.....i played aggresive as each new bubble came. I got all my chips in with 77 AK and 88 and survuved each race, but i finally went out when my TT could'nt dodge a river King for my opponents AK. I found a way to make a super bubble spot for myself as i was the 127th player out. It paid 47.10...126 and only 126 paid 50.72 and 100th-125 paid 50.73 LOL all that playing and i wanted the extra 3.62 and that damn extra penny LOL.

The Ultimatebet 6.50 bounty tournament was another bubble for me...there were 316 players and only the top 4o were paid. I managed to get my last 4300 all in with pocket red Aces and lost to JJ when my opponent hit 4 clubs on the board to make a Jack high flush.

My last hope for a big win was the Full-Tilt 19:01 22k guarantee tourney......I used my one and only 75$ token to enter this tournament and it must have been my lucky token. LEt's just say that in the first 2 hours i hit alot of flops and i got 2 "get out of Jail" cards when i got all my money in with 99 versus an oppents QQ and i rivered a nine, then i got QQ in the big blind and a table bully raised and i re-raised all-in. When his cards appeared i was devastated. He had AA.....arrgghh! I then got another huge river suckout when my beautiful lady came. At 9:30 pm i was in 3rd place with 80 players left. We started with 375 players and only the top 35 got paid so i was in good shape, but very nervous. At 10:10 pm i was in 7th place when the money bubble burst. At 10:30 i had fallen to 14th with 27 left. I had to push all-in about 14 times in the last 2 hours and i had 3 hands hold up: KK vs QQ and JJ vs 87 on a 856 board and finally AA vs 77. A few hands later i flopped a queen high flush and i got paid off and was in first place with 16 players left.

I had145K in chips and i had visions of the 6K+ first place dancing in my head.....but that all went away when i got KK. Somehow KK had always been a danger premium hand for me. I got one caller when i made it 5x the big blind to go. I was trying to entice someone to think i had small pair and instead i got called by another large stack with QQ....she hit the wueen right on the flop and i was down to under 50,000. The next hour and a half is a blur of push and pray and watching each person getting knoked out until the final table started. At the final table i was in 7th palce with 83K and with only 2 people with less i was in trouble. 4 hands in and one short stack gone and i was so happy. Then another short stack gone on AJ vs 99 and there were only 7 left. I doubled up from the big stack with KQ vs A7 and another elimination and now we were talking some serious money. The next half hour was raise and fold and consolidating by the 3 big stacks who had 200, 320 and 417k. My 76K never looked so small....with the big blind at 10K and an AQ in my hand i went all in when a large stack raised. Unfortunately she had KK and alas no Ace for me. I went out in 4th place for 2,393.44. My biggest Cash ever. I write this now and the adrenaline is still coursing through my body. I don't know when i'll get to sleep :)
Cya at the Tables,
Lara L.
LLM at Full-tilt and UB
LLMVT at pokerstars