Recovery Project

Playing in a live tourney this evening, so I sat down and tried my hand at a $20 18-man this afternoon for practice.

Played well. First hand of the tourney, took a free play with AdJd against a thousand limpers. Flopped an ace and the nut flush draw, and check-called small bets all the way to the end, and won a 500 chip pot with my aces against second pair.

Floated up and up until one mistake - I limped with KQ from the small blind instead of raising, because the blinds were big stacks and a little too "cally". Missed everything on a 223 flop, hit my queen on the turn, and got raised off a solid value bet. Well, dumbass, I let him in the hand and he hit trips. Great.

That put me close to desperation mode, but two hands later I shoved over a limper with pocket jacks and he made the awful call with pocket fours, and I was back in the hunt.

Play of the tourney (for me) - raised with pocket nines and got a caller who had me covered. Board was 28T. I looked at his postflop aggression - it was high. This was the tourney, either he hit a ten on me, or slowplayed a bigger pair, or I was ahead. I checked to see what he would do. He thought for a few seconds and bet - this timing tell was all I needed. I went all in and won 1800 chips, which got me out of harm's way.

The bubble broke. A short stack pushed in, and I reraise-shoved with pocket eights, and was glad to see ace-deuce. No 3 card miracle for him, we were down to 3.

The guy to my right was raising every time he had the chance - I finally took an all-in last stand with pocket jacks. He made a call with KQs and we raced to the finish - sadly - a runner-runner flush sent me to the land of few chips.

I was prepping myself mentally for a solid third place finish. I kept alive as best I could. In one hand, I folded my button with 73o, and the 2 remaining players left got into an all in battle themselves! (AQ vs. JJ). AQ, the big stack, spiked a queen on the turn to send JJ out in third place. This gave me an improbable second place finish and enough profit to cover my headsup debacle from a few nights ago.