On Fire

Okay, I thought Tuesday was a good day. I played in a few tournaments yesterday and made the money twice. It seems lately whenever I make it deep into a tournament, I am able to close the deal. I'm not sure what I'm doing differently, but for one I am extremely confident right now. As long as I have been playing, I still feel my game is improving every day.

Pokerstars recently added a new type of tournament, a $50+$5 NL 90 person sit & go. They start as soon as it fills up, and I thought I would try them out. On my second try, I found myself at the final table. Not long after, I found myself heads up with the chip lead against my opponent. My AK held up against his AQ, and I won the tournament.

PokerStars Tournament #21757240, No Limit Hold'em
Buy-In: $50.00/$5.00
90 players
Total Prize Pool: $4500.00
Tournament started - 2006/03/22 - 13:26:21 (ET)

Dear mysterio6044,

You finished the tournament in 1st place.
A $1,350.00 award has been credited to your Real Money account.


Congratulations!
Thank you for participating.

The other tournament I made it deep into was the $55+Rebuys. I started with 200 players and by the end of the rebuy period I was in for $250 and sitting with an average stack. Then came the turning point:

*********** # 120 **************
PokerStars Game #4377440679: Tournament #21579120, Hold'em No Limit - Level VIII
(200/400) - 2006/03/22 - 17:09:48 (ET)
Table '21579120 9' Seat #4 is the button
Seat 1: tigerlady9 (6678 in chips)
Seat 2: micon (18857 in chips)
Seat 3: mysterio6044 (12972 in chips)
Seat 4: gr33dy (2955 in chips)
Seat 5: AaronC (29028 in chips)
Seat 6: killerkp (6475 in chips)
Seat 8: Ubsolute (12600 in chips)
Seat 9: stbrandal (36177 in chips)
tigerlady9: posts the ante 25
micon: posts the ante 25
mysterio6044: posts the ante 25
gr33dy: posts the ante 25
AaronC: posts the ante 25
killerkp: posts the ante 25
Ubsolute: posts the ante 25
stbrandal: posts the ante 25
AaronC: posts small blind 200
killerkp: posts big blind 400
*** HOLE CARDS ***
Dealt to mysterio6044 [Ad Qs]
Ubsolute: folds
stbrandal: calls 400
tigerlady9: folds
micon: folds
mysterio6044: raises 1200 to 1600
gr33dy: folds
AaronC: folds
killerkp: folds
stbrandal: calls 1200
*** FLOP *** [9s Td 3h]
stbrandal: checks
mysterio6044: bets 3200
stbrandal: calls 3200
*** TURN *** [9s Td 3h] [5c]
stbrandal: checks
mysterio6044: checks
*** RIVER *** [9s Td 3h 5c] [9d]
stbrandal: bets 8800
mysterio6044: calls 8147 and is all-in
*** SHOW DOWN ***
stbrandal: shows [7s 8s] (a pair of Nines)
mysterio6044: shows [Ad Qs] (a pair of Nines - Ace kicker)
mysterio6044 collected 26694 from pot
*** SUMMARY ***
Total pot 26694 | Rake 0
Board [9s Td 3h 5c 9d]
Seat 1: tigerlady9 folded before Flop (didn't bet)
Seat 2: micon folded before Flop (didn't bet)
Seat 3: mysterio6044 showed [Ad Qs] and won (26694) with a pair of Nines
Seat 4: gr33dy (button) folded before Flop (didn't bet)
Seat 5: AaronC (small blind) folded before Flop
Seat 6: killerkp (big blind) folded before Flop
Seat 8: Ubsolute folded before Flop (didn't bet)
Seat 9: stbrandal showed [7s 8s] and lost with a pair of Nines

With the board reading 9T359, he put me allin on the river, and all I had was AQ (Ace high). The way the hand played out, I just knew he was on the straight draw. I honestly put him on QJ and not 87, but I was sure he had nothing. I've probably made some better calls in my time, but I've never been so certain.

I cruised to the final 2 tables, where it was me who finally got lucky. My 33 beat KK when I hit a 3 on the flop. I went to the final table with the chip lead, with $400k to the next guy's $150k. I took 4 or 5 really ugly river beats, but thanks to my big stack I was able to rebuild each time. When we were down 2 players, my opponent had $680k in chips to my $530k. 1st place paid $11,500 and 2nd paid $7500. I felt I had a significant advantage over my opponent, but he had the chip lead and the blinds were very high. Why risk $4000 to only make an extra $1300? So what we did is agree to each take $9000, and leave $1200 on the table to play for. It only took me a few hands to beat him, and I ended up taking home $10,200 for this win.

PokerStars Tournament #21579120, No Limit Hold'em
Buy-In: $50.00/$5.00
200 players
Total Prize Pool: $38400.00
Tournament started - 2006/03/22 - 15:15:00 (ET)

Dear mysterio6044,

You finished the tournament in 1st place.
A $11,520.00 award has been credited to your Real Money account.

You earned 382.00 tournament leader points in this tournament.
For information about our tournament leader board, see our web site at
http://www.pokerstars.com/tlb_tournament_rankings.html


Congratulations!
Thank you for participating.

Notice it says I won $11,520, but I really only won $10,200 because of the deal we made. It also gave me 382 tournament leader points. Right now I am in 6th place for this week. The winner at the end of the week gets to play heads up for $1000 against a Pokerstars pro such as Tom McEvoy or Joe Hachem for free, and also gets his picture posted in the Pokerstars main lobby for a week. I am still 1200 points behind 1st place, but with a few more good finishes I should have a good shot at it.