From almost out to second place; Nice score!

[ammbo]

So at about 2 AM I find myself dozing off. I was in the Party $50 large caps tournament and doing poorly. I had never run my stack above 1200 and the blinds were already 100/200. I was about to give up and go to bed, as my concentration was waning. I found myself with T1070 UTG+1. I picked up JJ. UTG limped and I just pushed it all in. I got two callers, MP and UTG. I flopped a set and beat AK and AQ. Woohoo! I kept grinding as a short stack, making small headway. I doubled again with QQ near the bubble to get to average stack. I made the money as a below average stack. Finally, I picked up AA in MP and there was an UTG minraise. I re-minraised and got a call (blinds were 2K). Flop was all babies and I checked behind, taking it with a small enticing turn bet. This put me in good shape.

With two tables left, I suddenly went on a rush. The big stack was playing like a fool, limping a lot. I pushed with AQ after he minraised, and he called with QTo from UTG. I doubled again, making me the big stack. The very next hand I got AJ and called an all in, busting the player's A9. We then moved to the final table. I had 160K in chips, the leader by about 60K. My cards suddenly went cold. I folded AJ to an all in and he got busted by QQ in the SB. I again folded ATo to an all in and he got busted by KK in the BB. Within about 15 hands we were down to 5 players. A hand developed where one player raised, another came OTT all in, and another re-re-raised all in. All called. The first raise was AK, then KJo, then QQ. A on the turn and we were three handed. I had been getting junk cards for a while and was the third stack. Once again, the big stack played poorly. Once he completed the SB and I moved in for 70K (7x) with AJ. He called with Q4s(!) and doubled me. He then proceeded to give most of his stack away. He did limp AA from the BT and doubled through me when I had JTs and hit top pair. Nice play. However, the very next hand I had Q5o in the BB. The big stack limped on the BT and the second stack completed. The flop was Qxx. He bet, I called, then the big stack made a big raise. The second stack moved in and I dropped. Big stack called, showing QTo, second stack had Q7s. Bye bye.

A few hands into HU play, I raised from the SB with A4s. The flop was A high and I checked. The turn put two clubs on the board and he bet. 15K, the minimum. I raised to 60K and he called. The river was the Ac and he put me in. Tough to fold that, and I was pot committed anyway. He had Kc5c and it was over. I will post the HH in a little while, I would love some thoughts on it.

A few notes. After the first hour of play, there were 206 people left out of 620!

I also had a guy at the final table whose table I had been on for most of the tourney. He would take his full 30 seconds for every decision. It was infuriating. He sucked out twice to stay alive and keep tormenting us. It was so bad that I got to see nine hands in one level. I was thrilled when he busted out in 8th place.

The final payday was $4650, which I believe is now my second best payday ever by about $100. WOOT!

[ammbo]

The final hand: This guy does not like to fold a blind shorthanded. I saw him call with K3o and bust a short stack. Thoughts on my play and his play would be great.

***** Hand History for Game 1196174071 *****
15000/30000 TourneyTexasHTGameTable (NL) (Tournament 7285275) - Fri Nov 19 04:06:12 EST 2004
Table Large Caps(138056) Table 1 (Real Money) -- Seat 2 is the button
Total number of players : 2
Seat 2: ammbo (160460)
Seat 6: daddyyoyo (459540)
ammbo posts small blind (7500)
daddyyoyo posts big blind (15000)
** Dealing down cards **
Dealt to ammbo [ 4d, Ad ]
ammbo raises (30800) to 38300
daddyyoyo calls (23300)
** Dealing Flop ** : [ Ah, Jc, 8c ]
daddyyoyo checks.
ammbo checks.
** Dealing Turn ** : [ 9s ]
daddyyoyo bets (15000)
ammbo raises (50500) to 50500
daddyyoyo calls (35500)
** Dealing River ** : [ Ac ]
daddyyoyo bets (370740)
daddyyoyo is all-In.
ammbo calls (71660)
ammbo is all-In.
Creating Main Pot with $320920 with ammbo
Creating Side Pot 1 with $299080 with daddyyoyo
** Summary **
Main Pot: 320920 | Side Pot 1: 299080
Board: [ Ah Jc 8c 9s Ac ]
ammbo balance 0, lost 160460 [ 4d Ad ] [ three of a kind, aces -- Ad,Ah,Ac,Jc,9s ]
daddyyoyo balance 620000, bet 459540, collected 620000, net +160460 [ Kc 5c ] [ a flush, ace high -- Ac,Kc,Jc,8c,5c ]

Half of my stack was in the pot on the turn, leaving me ~5 BB. I have come back from worse but not often. Should I have pushed on the turn, happy with what was in the pot already?

One thing about the PartyPoker software that I hate... The slider goes in increments of 100 even on a 15K blind. As a result, I think I slid it a lot but my actual raises may be too small. I should type the amounts in the future.

[Tigerite]

I don't think you can type amounts anymore on Party Poker - which is really frustrating and crap. Unless they've changed it for the MTTs. Great result by the way.

[dbirider]

[theredpill99]

Ammbo,

How do you play your 99 to JJ when there is a big raise and 3 callers or say a raise and reraise right before you ? This is the most difficult thing for me to do I think. Knowing when to give it up and when to push it all-in. I ended up folding a JJ and a 99 and both would have won me a nice pot. Somebody would raise to 5x the blind and get 3 callers and I'd would be left with a tough decision. Or a raise would be followed by a reraise, only to find out once the hand was completed that I had the best hand.

[ammbo]

dbirider... $5K has a way of waking you up!

Redpill, this depends on a lot of factors. The size of your stack, the raising/calling standards of the other players, and the size of the blinds. Early in a tourney in a multiway pot, I will treat 99, TT, and JJ as any other small pair. Call; no set, no bet. I run from overcards with these, as they can be trouble. If the original raiser is a nut and I have more than about twice the size of the pot in my stack, an all in will sometimes get a fold around or at least get the pot heads up. If it is an EP raise from a solid player and calling will take more than 1/4 of my stack, it is a fold. These hands are very player dependent. They do not do well in a multiway pot for a lot of your chips.

[JSaw]

Congrats to you too Ammbo...

It is very hard to get to sleep after a win...I wore the remote out last night flipping through the channels trying to get to sleep.

[dr winston]

winning a tournament is one of the best feelings you can experience in sport / games in my opinion. I played semi-pro football (soccer) and scored in the FA Cup and while that was one of the highlights of my life so far (haven't got any kids or anything), it paled into insignificance the moment I realised I had won the tournament !!!

Well done Ammbo. Serious amount of money won there.

[theredpill99]

I know. I used to play football when I was younger but I don't remember being as happy as I was when I won that MTT. I stood up and raised my hands in there and shouted "yyyeeeessssssss !!!!" and then I did it again. Actually , I said "yyyyyeeeeesssssss" over and over for the next 5 minutes , intermittently. Then I would say, "you the man"...."you the man" and finally I calmed down. Anyone else do this? I bet Matt does it. Matt ?

[Tigerite]

When I won the 200 person MTT, I just sat in a bit of disbelief for a while, especially as I'd offered to chop (it was like 1am UK time) when I had a 2-to-1 chip lead, he didn't accept. More fool him, really.

[theredpill99]

You didn't scream ? I did . And I'll do it again, too. I know it.

[Tigerite]

Nope, I think I was too stunned and tired to do that. Heh.

[ammbo]

I was a tad bummed that I did not win the thing outright. Call me greedy, but I wanted to win this one. Top prize was almost 7K. I have gotten to the point that I want to play to win, not just cash. I'll take it though! I was thrilled.

[BernardDogs]

[Tokenizer]

I remember winning the first Caprice Freeroll on Pardise. You had to get in the top X amount of players in a qualifying freeroll to get in. I think there were just over 2000 people that played in the main event that got qualified for the $10,000 prize pool. I ended up playing with Subq and a few others from ITH near the end and that's what actually got me to come check this place out.

Anyway, having won a tourney that large, withouth having to risk a dollar, was sweet to get $2,250 for first place. I remember being very excited, having no one else in the house, and going over to my pitbull to celebrate...

p.s. My pitbull knows how to party...