As most of you who follow my blog know, I haven't really been playing any serious online poker the last few months. Just a few SNGs here and there. But I decided, what the heck, let's register since it's positive EV for me as the tournament appeared to have some overlay.
Right from the start, I was extremely lucky. I kept getting AQ which I raised, and the Q for some reason always flopped. The payoff came somewhere around the middle of the tournament. I got AQ for the upteenth time, raised it up in early position, chip leader decided to 3 bet me, I just shoved everything in and he called. AQ vs 99. Flop came with 2 Queens and just like that I was chip leader.
With a good amount of chips, I pretty much just raised everytime I got an Ace or was in position and this allowed me to stay in the top 3 in chips and cruise to the final table. There was another instance where I had another AQ, somebody shoved all his chips. Insta call and he showed KQ. Hyuk. Donkey poker all the way.
Final Table, I shifted gears and went tight. Not so much, but around SNG tight if you know what I mean. Just play premium hands and wait for the low stacks to bust out since the money concentration was in the top 3 places. In this case, the low stacks are pretty loose since everybody was already ITM and you can sit around with your good stack and wait for the bust outs to happen.
Final 4 was an international group, 1 Russian, 1 player from China, 1 American and me. Artificial bubble. The Russian player and the American player were butting heads all throughout the final table and this time was no different. Chip lead kept changing between the 2 of them and finally Russians busts out the American and he types something like "America sucks" in the chat table. Heheh. Sounds like a remnant from the Cold War.
China player had the shortest stack and he pushes all in almost every hand. I wake up with JJs. And iso-shove. He shows K-8 or something and I bust him out.
Heads up. Russian had a 3 to 1 chip lead over me. But he plays passive for some reason which allowed me to catch up. I kept raising and showing him junk hands. Eventually he kept calling and I was lucky enough to catch a straight on the river for a big pot. I now had a slight chip lead over him.
Final Hand. He calls my blind. I see A 10. I raise it big. He just calls. Flop goes A, 8, 7 with 2 spades. I bet half the pot. He insta-raises all-in. Whoops. I tank and I was thinking what the fuck does he have. He can't have 88 or 77, otherwise he would have raised me from the start. An Ace rag is possible but again, heads up play, wouldn't you automatically raise? I didn't think he was trapping with AK or AQ since from what I observed, Russian was not a sneaky player.
So finally, I decided with the massive overbet that he was trying to scare me away with some kind of draw. I called and he showed 2 spades in his hand. Flush Draw. I was chanting No Spades, No spades and waddya know. My hand holds up for the win.
Phew! And to think I wasn't even serious about the MTT from the start and the poker gods decide to grant me an early Christmas git. It was nice to know that I still have the chops to win one of these donkaments.
Again, I have observed that whenever I play without any pressure to win. I end up doing well. It just goes to show that the old adage about Scared Money never winning is so true and every poker player should always be reminded about this.
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