Any given Sunday

What's 4 months inbetween posts?

I fell off posting for a bit and was then waiting for some big news/good news to start up again. Well today I finally made my big break through cash in a tourney. I was playing on a new site called Titan Poker a little lately and to attract players they were offering a touney with a guarenteed prizepool of $1 Million like Poker Stars and Party Poker usually do. They made the buyin for the tournament $1000 though and as registration closed there was only about 500 people in it meaning that for a $1k buy in you were getting about a $2k entry. At the last minute I decided to take a shot at the tourney.

They tournament paid out 80 spots and as we got down to about 100 people left play slowed down and I was at about half of the average chip stack. The 80th spot paid $1.5k and I was looking foward to getting my buy-in back since there were quite a few short stacks still in. With about 83 people left though I was getting very short stacked but picked up KK and was lucky to double up against AJ. This got me rolling and I caught some good hands after we made the money and a bunch of people were making their move since the blinds were so big. With about 50 people left I was sitting 3rd in chips.

I continued to put a lot of pressure on the smaller stacks since many people were willing to just move up a pay spot and pick up an extra $500 and were willing to fold their big blind even when they only had about twice that in chips. When we got to the final table I was 5th in chips but the blinds were pretty big compared to my stack. I was lucky to get all in with AQ against J9 and double up. When we got down to 4 handed I was in 3rd in chips but picked up AA and doubled up against AT to move me up to 2nd.

The 4th place person was eliminated and we were three handed with the stacks at about 700k, 600k, and me in 3rd with 400k in chips and the blinds at 15k/30k. On the button I picked up JJ and raised to 80k and the big blind with 600k moved in and I immediatly called and he flipped over A2. The flop came King high and I was looking good to double up and get the chip lead but an Ace on the turn and I got knocked out in second. The payouts for the tourney were $300k for first, $155k for second, and $75k for me in third.

I definitly can't complain though as I got lucky to pick up some cards at the right time and have my good hands hold at the right time. It sucked losing to a 3 outer on the turn that probably cost me at least $80k but walking away with my biggest win ever and $75,000 definitly numbs that pain. I'm not sure of my exact plan for the money but I will be back to posting more often now.

Andy