Finally!!!

About time I ended this downswing I've been on in tournaments. Played a whole bunch of satellites to the $1k tournament that Full Tilt runs every Monday. I ended up winning my seat, which is good because I probably spent $850 getting it. I was close to winning another seat two other times which would have gotten me an extra $1k in cash but I came up short. On Stars if you win a seat you don't have to play in the tournament but on Full Tilt you have to play your first one and then you get cash for any seats after that.

The tournament started out really well and it seemed like people were just giving me their chips early on. I got a few hands in a row and went from an average stack to a really big stack. I had a guy check raise me all-in when I had top set and he had a straight draw to get my first big double up. I then went on a run and got AK a few times against some weaker hands. I also had a big hand where I had 96 in the big blind and got a free look at the flop to see 965 for flopped top two pair. I led out and got called in two spots. The turn brought another 6 giving me a full house and I check raised the other two guys all-in and one called with TT and he failed to hit his two outer. This game me around a 12k stack and put me top 5 with about 150 people left.

My stack floated between 10k and 15k all the way down to about 30 people where I started to get a little short despite not really having my stack move much. The money bubble was at 27 and with about 29 left I had to make a big call with AT when the button who had me covered shoved and showed A9. I hit a ten on the flop and dodged his turned straight draw to double up to about 20k. Just after the money bubble burst I picked up KK in the big blind and a player in the CO who had been super aggressive open shoved for 40k and I quickly called and my kings held up against his 77.

I ended up sitting at about 40k then all the way to the final table. When the final table started I was 8th in chips out of the 9 players. One guy busted early on and with 8 left I picked up pocket tens. The chip leader raised and I shoved all-in over his raise and was instantly called by the guy on my left. I was hoping he'd flip AK and we would be racing but he had KK and I was way behind. I got lucky and spiked a T on the turn to double up and move up to 3rd or 4th in chips.

There were a few more quick bustouts and we got down to 4 handed fast. I floated between 2nd and 3rd in chips while we were 4 handed. In my bustout hand I raised with KTs and the big blind cold called and the flop came down QTT with two diamonds. He led into me and I raised him with my trips figuring I had to be way ahead and he either had a straight draw, a flush draw, straight and flush draw, or just a bare queen. He reshoved over my raise and I called to see QJs. He hit his 2 outer queen on the turn though and I was out. The pot would have tied me up with the chip leader and the other two would have been really short.

I sold some of my action toward the end of the tournament when there was about 17 left and I had an average stack. So while 4th paid out about 23k I got just under 17k. It was a good deal at the time and if I hadn't gotten lucky with my tens it would have been a great deal for me. It's nice to finally get a big score and while it was really disappointing not to have that hand hold but I was really happy.

There's a really good chance I'll be playing the $2500 6max event this Monday now. It's one of the events where the final table will be televised on ESPN so it should get a big and soft field.