This weekend I was talking to a friend online when he asked if I had any money online still. I told him no, but it only takes 2 minutes and joined him in two 27 person tournaments. In the first one I lasted an hour and I lost on a coinflip when I was short stacked in 12th place. The other tournament though, well, let’s just say I did a lot better.
Early in the game I decided to take some of what I realized from my last post, Ben’s tight play preflop. I folded AJo preflop to small raises and didn’t get too aggressive with low pocket pairs, avoiding getting into pots that I didn’t have a distinct advantage. I ended up getting down to 5 handed and knocked out the 5th place player when it folded to me in the small blind. I had A10 and decided (since the big blind was the low stack) to simply put him to a decision for all of his chips. I raised 3000 with 300-600 blinds and my opponent called, a last ditch effort with Q9 to double up. I ended up winning with ace high and moving into the money.
Once into the money I noticed the player to my left was very aggressive. I raised from the small blind into his big blind with A4o and he immediately went all in. I folded and decided to wait for a better chance against such an aggressive player. A few rounds later I picked up KK in the same position. I raised like I did before and lo and behold he reraised 3x my raise. I decided to simply call and let him put in another bet on the flop.
The flop came out A J 4 … not exactly what I wanted, but I didn’t believe that he had an ace. As aggressive as he was I just didn’t give him that much credit. I checked and he bet out $1600. I raised all in for $4500 more and watched, hoping he didn’t call quickly and show me an ace. The longer he took the better and better I felt and he folded. I told him to stay out of the cookie jar, which got him pretty upset.
The very next round I picked up 99 from the button and raised. He went all in, and the big blind called! I called as well and saw a flop: Q J 9 … The big blind checked and I tried to isolate and bet 2/3 the pot, about $4500 and the big blind called! Now I was just hoping no K or 8 fell, but the turn was a 3. I went all in and the big blind folded giving me at least $9000 in the side pot. The aggressive small blind (who was all in) showed A8, drawing to an inside straight draw, but missed and I knocked out the 3rd place player and got closer to the chip leader.
I went into heads up almost 2-1 down but didn’t lose a single hand. My opponent loved to raise the minimum and I was happy to pay such a small price to see a flop. I hit a few flops and got him to bite. The last hand was a small raise from him and a call from me with J10. The flop came out J 4 4 and I bet out. He raised and I went all in, and he called almost immediately. He showed 88 and was drawing to 2 outs and missed and I took home 1st place for $50 ($5 buyin) and doubled my online buyin in my second tournament, not bad, hopefully this keeps up! Good luck!
