Unplanned Win

I woke up yesterday too lazy to go to school intending to just stay home and bum around. Fortunately, I got off my ass to go to class (cause I had to) and I went home a tourney winner with a heavier wallet.

How did that happen? Well I'm glad you asked.

So after my Tourism Marketing class yesterday (a class where I still haven't decided if it's a good class or not), I saw a couple of poker buddies and they let me know that there was a mini-tournament at a friend of theirs. Since I had nothing else to do, I figured why not, at the very least, I get a free ride home after the game. It turns out it wasn't the mini-tournament had 50 players ready to play poker. Since I haven't played in a long while, I was very eager to start playing a large field.

We all started with 3000 in chips with the blinds at 25-25 that rises every half hour. By the time the blinds got to 25-50, I was severely crippled to just 275 in chips after I pushed all in with KK and got called with top pair/flush draw and hit the flush on the river. I got lucky and doubled up twice after that and by the time the blinds got to the 3rd level (50-100), I got back to the buy-in amount.

Anyway, by the time the final table rolled around, I was in the middle of the pack. I got lucky with good cards and won a race (AK hit against 99) and built a stack. And then, I made what would turn out to be the play of the night (at least for me lol).

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Blinds: 300-600 Ante: 50

Seat 5: 39000 chips (? ?)
Seat 9 (Me): 25000 chips (A hearts, Q spades)
Seat 2 (Big Blind): 33000 chips (? ?)

Preflop: Seat 5 raises to 2,000. I call with AQ offsuit. The Big blind calls as well.

Analysis: Seat 5 is a tight player, so I put him at a pocket pair or AK. I called with AQ and hope a Queen lands instead of an Ace. The Big blind could have anything from a pocket pair to suited connectors, maybe KQ.

Pot: 6,800 (2,000 x 3 + 300(sb) + 500(ante))
Flop: J hearts, 5 hearts, 6 diamonds (J 5 6)

Action: Seat 2(BB) checks. Seat 5 bets 2000. I call the 2000. Seat 2(BB) also calls.

Analysis: I called the 3000 to try to bluff seat 5 at the turn, but I didn't expect seat 2 to call. At that point, the only hand seat 2 can have is a flush draw, a straight draw or a set of sixes. Note that I only have Ace high at this point.

Pot: 12 800.
Turn: Ten of spades (J 5 6 T)

Action: Seat 2 checks. Seat 5 checks. I check.

Pot: 12 800
River: 9 of hearts (J 5 6 T 9)

Action: Seat 2 bets 6000. Seat 5 thinks for a minute and folds. I raise all-in for my last 20 000 and change. Seat 2 takes forever to think and then throws away 78 offsuit (he had the straight 789TJ). Seat 5 threw away Ace of spades, Ace of clubs. I take down the 18 800 pot with Ace high.

Analysis: If there was a card I could have hoped for, it would have been an Ace or a heart (If the ace hit, I would have been wrong but just in case he had QQ or KK). Because I had the Ace of hearts, I knew that no one had the nuts. I put Seat 2 at a flush or straight draw and I put Seat 5 at an overpair. I played my hand like a flush draw and the nine of hearts on the river "made" it for me. When seat 2 bet, It confirmed my read. The player in Seat 2 also happened to be a solid player which made it easier to pull that bluff off (A weaker player would have called regardless). All that mixed together made my river push much more effective.

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After that, it wasn't much to push around the table. I got down to heads-up with a 3-1 chip lead and was the more aggressive player. With a flop of KQJ, I called an all-in with K6. He had JT and failed to improve and that was that.

Oh and by the way, I'm slowly changing my ym to peppericious@yahoo.com. The reason being at age 22, it might be a little too old to have a handle like true_love5484.