Close again ...

Absolute changed their Sunday tourney to a rebuy, which I am not a big fan of, but decided to go ahead and play it anyway. I immediately rebought and treaded water for a while. Eventually, I started to build a stack and by the first break I had a respectable 7500 in chips. The tournament allows 2 add ons, which I took advantage of, raising my stack to 11500.

I won't belabor the specifics, I made a few blunders, and made some other nice plays. Doubled up on a flopped full house from the BB with 59.

I eventually built my stack up to 41K and had been playing very tightly, and the blinds and antes were starting to look enticing enough to ramp up the heat on the blinds. Folded to me in the cutoff and I have J4s, normally a hand I wouldn't even bat an eye at, but I have not seen a flop in quite a while and have not put any heat on the blinds at all, so I decide the timing was right for a steal.

The big blind calls my 4x raise and the flop comes K35. He immediately bets out, but less than half the pot. I smell a rat, and reraise him, he calls. The turn is 9 and he leads out again, but this time with a minimum bet. Now, I have a decision to make, either give it up or reraise. Because the bet was so small, I am a bit worried about a really big hand, like 99 or K9, but I decide to put him to the test and reraise again, this time about half the pot. He calls, and the river is a 2. He pushes all in, 3000 more chips, and I put on my production ... letting the time run down a bit before folding.

He shows me A4 for a wheel he made on the river ... brutal. I was behind the whole time of course, but my aggressive play should have taken down that pot. This put me down to about 23K chips and now I'm looking at a struggle to get into the money.

I catch QQ in the big blind. Early position player raises, everyone folds and I reraise him. Flop is all babies, but there are 2 spades, so I push in and he folds, telling me had had AK diamonds. We are starting to get close to the money (top 45 pay) and I push in with 99 and a big stack calls me with ATo and I manage to double up.

Flopped a full house from the big blind and slow played it into a double up, and now I have over 90K in chips. After stealing a few blinds and antes and taking down a small pot, I reach my high water mark of 107K.

And then I started to unravel a bit. AKo, big raise, late position caller. Flop is all undercards and I make a continuation bet, he pushes in on me for 40K and I have to fold.

Ultimately, I end up making a move with AK again, get reraised by a big stack, and I end up all in. He flips over AQs and catches a Q and I end up out in 26th place.

Winning that final hand would have put me with a below average stack still, but I would have had plenty of chips for a run.

Another good result, finishing 26th out of a 495 person field is certainly acceptable. Still working on that big tournament win though ... it's coming.