Money'd in the WWdN

I played the WWdN last night for the first time in quite a while. I made the final table and was the first of the final nine to exit. Suprisingly, the prize money went that deep, so I actually profited a few dollars. It's been a long time since I won anything in this tournament, so it was a nice change of pace.

Before I get into the specifics and lose the two readers I have, let me put in a plug for the WWdN: Not The Anithri Invitational at PokerStars Thursday at 22:30 EDT. It's tournament 30611882 if you look things up that way. Password is monkey. My co-host darval won't be playing this week and I'm iffy because I'm traveling on Friday and may not be done packing by tournament time. But feel free to play amongst yourselves.

I got rather lucky early on when I tried to cheaply play a suited ace, caught four to my flush on the flop, and then got priced out when MsJoanne doubled my initial bet of 120 and then GRobman pushed in all of his already doubled stack. I say I got lucky, because the turn would have filled my flush, but the river filled GRobman's boat and knocked out MsJoanne. Thanks for the huge bet GRobman.

A lot of folding followed that exciting hand. I used a hoyazo move to put kerriz0r to the test on a king high flop by betting her (I think she's a she) entire stack minus one chip. She folded and I added about 300 to my modest stack.

A bunch more folding followed. (I was playing a HORSE ring game at the same time, so I mostly played basic, tight poker til the latter stages of the WWdN.) Then Longshot1999 had the misfortune to push all-in with AQo against my KK. A Q fell on the flop but Longshot1999 didn't improve beyond that and my kings took down a nice 2055 pot. That was just shy of a double up for me.

Several more rounds of folding and watching the blinds eat away at my stack followed. I finally caught a playable hand, AQo, and made a standard 3BB raise to 450. xkm1245 made it 1200, but thought better of it when I pushed in the rest of my stack. A reasonable 1425 profit, bringing me to 3600, the second biggest stack at the table.

Much more lack of excitement ensued. I took a medium pot when I pushed all-in with pocket 7's. This got me back the blinds I'd been bleeding while waiting for some cards, but nothing more. My stack was still about 3600, but now there were several much bigger stacks at my table.

I started getting more playable hands, but they didn't all work out. Okay, most of them didn't work out. My stack was down to 1800 when I pushed all-in with AQo and took the blinds and antes. No biggie, usually, but adding another M to a M=3.5 stack is a nothing to sneeze at.

Caught a big blind special when my J9o saw a 9 high flop, giving me top pair and four to a Jack high flush. There was about 1000 in the pot, so I pushed in the 2000 I had left and got called by Smally2004 with just Ace high. My nines held and I was up to 5100, out of immediate danger, with blinds at 100/200 and 25 ante.

Slow evaporation of my stack continued until we moved to the final table. Two hands later Smally2004 inexplicably called the 3BB raise from my pocket 6's with K2s from the big blind. Despite the flop being very hostile to my small pair, I had no choice but to call the following 1BB all-in, and was very happy to see I only had to dodge seven cards -- the three kings and the jacks that would fill a straight. Sadly, a rivered king put a dent in my stack, bringing me down to 3800. With the blinds at 200/400 with a 25 ante, my M was slightly less than 5.

The very next hand I caught ATo, raised to 3BB and called the all-in from aquaverse. His pocket 8's were good and added insult to injury by catching a third on the river. I was now about to the dead zone with my stack down to 1600. This was my first big mistake. My initial raise was okay given my position and the situation, but I should have folded to the all-in.

Continuing my rapid exit from the tournament, the next hand brought me suited big slick. With an M under 2, how can you not push with that hand? I get three callers and am hoping to quadruple up, but the board brought me no improvement and HermWarfare's set of sixes put me to bed. Three hands and out.

I can't say that I played brilliantly. I made some nice bets, stole a couple small pots, and otherwise played like anyone else who's read Harrington. Can't complain about making the money though. It helped make up for the shellacking I took at ring HORSE.