I played in the 15K guarantee tourney last night at Absolute Poker, which is a $10 rebuy. After suffering through the first 30 minutes of the tournament, I was down about 900 chips to 2100 (I rebought immediately as I usually do). I usually play pretty loose early on, calling more liberally than I would in a freeze out, so I am prone to lose some chips until I finally hit a big hand.
I am dealt AK and raise, getting one caller. The flop JQx, 2 overs and inside straight draw. I bet about half the pot, and get called immediately. The turn is a J and I figure to be in trouble now. I check and the other guy bets out and I make a very loose call and manage to spike a Ten on the river. The other guy was pretty pissed (he had AJ). Frankly, I had been really card dead and committed a pretty good amount of chips to the pot. If I had missed, I would've called it quits and gone to play ring games.
But, having nearly doubled up, and now with a loose table image, I had a great opportunity. A few hands later, I flopped a set and grabbed another nice pot. Then I hit an open end straight, and I was up to about 7500 chips. By the first break, I was in the top 50 and I did a double add on.
I really played very nicely, and managed to get all the way to about 5th place with 40 to go. Winner got $3900 so it was a pretty nice pay out.
Then I got overly aggressive and paid for it. Tried a blind steal with 8Ts, that backfired. Then defended my blind against a really aggressive button with K4s, he ended up having Q8, but caught a Q. I should have put in a big raise on that hand to avoid a flop. Limped with some average hands only to have to fold to late position all ins. The blinds were quite large by this point, so every hand was huge. I ended up short stacked, 23K in chips with 4K/8K blinds and pushed in with AKs only to get called by A8o, who hit an 8 on the river to send me home in 26th. I made about $70 for over 4 hours of work.
It was a fun tournament, but disappointing at the same time. I misplayed a few hands that really cost me. I should have made the final table.
Oh well, I played really well on the bubble of the tournament, which had not been a strength previously.
