The Bat Cave

I didn’t feel like keeping any notes today, so I don’t have a whole lot of hands to talk about. I splashed around and played pretty loose (and kind of bad, honestly) for the first three rounds and I had lost 2/3 of my stack early.

Key Hand #1 – I can’t recall the blind levels or my exact stack size… but I think it was 100-200 and I raised it to 600 with JJ. Folds to the button who shoves for about 2000 total. I call and my hand holds against 77 and I win my first decent sized pot.

After that hand, I managed to win enough blinds to keep myself right around an M of 5 all the way to the final table. At the final table, I pushed all in 4-5 times and never got called and managed to make it to the top 5.

Key Hand #2 – with the blinds at 1000-2000, I have Ad6d in the BB and 9000 behind. The chip leader makes a raise to 7000 from the cut off and it folds to me. I’m probably ahead of his opening range here (knowing the player well) and my stack dictates a shove so I get it in. He calls and shows KsJs. The flop comes T42, with two spades, the turn is a Q, and somehow I dodge one of his 20 outs on the river and double up to 23000.

Key Hand #3 – with the blinds at 1000-2000, it folds to the SB who only has 5000 left and gets it in. I toss another 3000 in without even looking and am ecstatic when I flip over a beautiful-looking AK. He shows QJ and it looks over when the flop comes AJ6, but then the board comes running Jacks and he scoops the pot with quads. This actually was my tournament-defining hand because if I hold, I would’ve had over 30,000 in chips, which would’ve been the chip lead, and we would have been down to four. Most importantly, this next hand would’ve never happened.

Key Hand #4 – with the blinds at 1000-2000, it folds to the button (the player I could have knocked out last hand) who shoves for 11000. I have Ah6h and I know he’s getting it in with a wide range here, so I call. Unfortunately, the big blind shoves for enough to put me all-in… and I now have half my chips in the pot and I’m getting ridiculously good odds. Folding is out of the question, even though the situation looks grim. Fortunately, neither of them has an Ace as they show KK and 99. I miss my 3-outer and bust out in 5th, which was good for $50 and a profit of $15. Yay!

That gives me one cash in four tries, two final tables, and a net “profit” of -$90. LOL.