Saturday PKR Tourney....

I had a Christmas luncheon out of town which almost caused me to miss the tournament today. I had them post my blinds and fold my hands for the entire re-buy period and I arrived just as they were playing the last hand of the re-buy period. I bought the add-on and away we went.... I played very well and made a couple of moves before we broke down to one table and got paid and double-uped rather quickly. I was determined to get into the money in this tournament and made several lay-downs when I was in early positon of pocket pairs which have been my downfall in other tourneys at PKR recently. It just seems that if I made a move with a small or even a middle pair, someone would call me with A, X and hit it so I changed that strategy up and only played the small or middle pairs from late position or from the big-blind. It worked, I ended up chopping 1st and 2nd for nearly $500 each.

I raised pre-flop 3 times with pocket kings and never got a caller.... I only attempted a steal at the final table one time when everyone folded to me in the small blind and I had 9h, 10h and the big blind re-raised me and I folded. Had I not been so committed to getting into the money, I would have probably called his re-raise, but I was determined to get in the money.

The blinds were going up quickly and I only had $5,000 in chips with $2,000/$4,000 blinds. It was my big blind and Rick was on the button and limped and Billy was in the small blind and limped. I knew they would call whatever I did to try to knock me out and I glance down to find Ah, Qc and so I put it all in. The flop was a Queen high and the river was an Ace giving me top 2 pair. They held up and I tripled up!

There was an interesting hand with Billy and the guy that I chopped 1st and 2nd with.... Billy limped in with pocket 10's and the flop was 9h no pairs. He bet $10,000 into the $12,000 pot and the guy, I think Chad, maybe.... re-raised him all-in for another $15,000 and Billy eventually, and I do mean eventually folded. Chad turned over AK off-suit. Nice bluff. That pretty much was the end of it for Billy. He made a move a couple of hands later with 10, 7 all-in and I woke up with pocket queens and I re-raised all-in. I flopped a set and he was pretty much drawing dead.

The other hand of interest was against Rick.... he tends to calculate pot-odds and play for pot-odds more than I do. I will lay-down a big re-raise if I think that I am behind regardless of the pot-odds unless I have a ton of chips. In this hand, he raised the $4,000 blind to $12,000 and I pushed all-in for another $19,000 and he called. I turned over Ah, 10d and he turned over As, 5s and my 10 held up. That pretty much was the tournament for me as it gave me over $50,000 in chips!

At any rate, since I came in late because of my travel schedule, I ended up chopping 1st/2nd and only had to play about 2 hours or so in the tournament. Sweet!

Back to the felt!