WPT Montreal Main Event Qualifier

I finished 9th out of 85.  7 place were paid with the top 4 getting packages.  I'm very bitter with my result still, even after a night of sleep.

I played very well overall, but still disappointed with how I played my knock out hand.  I'm without my hand histories at the moment, so I won't be able to get into a ton of details, but I've got a few stories to tell.  The first was that I risked my tournament life within the first 10 hands.  It's not something I really wanted to do, but there was the crazy player who was just betting huge that I knew I should try to take advantage of.

I had JJ UTG and raised to 60 (blinds 10/20, and I had 4.4k stack and villain had me covered).   It folded to him and he raised to 480!!!  I just called, with the intention of check/shoving any reasonable flop.  I got a perfect flop on 6 4 2.  I checked, he bet something like 1500 and I shoved my 4k.  He called with his A6o, and 20% of the time I'm done.  Thankfully I held and was chip leader 10 minutes into the tourney!

I think I stayed at that 9k chip stack for 2 hours.  The structure was 20 minute blinds and we were super deep, so I wasn't in the mood to get overly aggressive and bleed my chips like I have done in the past.  I did work my stack up eventually to 20k and then got it all-in vs a 10k stack only to lose AKs < AQs.  After that I got more aggressive, and started stealing and stole enough to get back up to the 20k stack again.  Then this and happened:  A short stack of 7k opened shoved, I think it might have been 200/400 or 250/500 and given the opponent, my 99 would be pretty good against his range.  However, the only "poor" player at this table, who had me covered, flat called the bet.  Since it was a call, I knew that it could not be a premium pair, so I shoved over his bet.  I was really hoping he'd fold to add dead money to the pot, he called and I was at risk again.  It was TT (shorty), AQo (poor) 99 (me).  I flop a 9, shorty turns a T and so shorty wins the main pot (20k) and I win the side pot  of 28k.

From there I win a bunch of all-ins from short stacks, and get my stack up to it's highest point of almost 70k.  I lost a flip for 10k when AJs < 55, so I was at 60k whe the tournament critical hand occurred: I had AKo on the button with blind of 300/600 I believe.  UTG+1 raises to 1800.  I decide to simply call since I don't want to deal with a 4-bet and the raise was large enough to deter the blinds from calling without decent hands.  The SB called which made me cautious as he was someone I thought was decent.  The flop came K82r.  Both players checked to me and the pot was 5600.  I bet relatively small, 2400 with the intention of folding to a check-raise from SB.  He just called and UTG min-raised, which confused me.  Depending on the player, the was either super strong or super weak. I decided to be passive and call and to my great relief, SB folded despite great odds.  The 2h turn put out a flush draw and he checked.  This meant his check-raise was weak.  I settled on my first overbet shove of the night.  There was about 18k in the pot and he had about 30k left.  I shoved and he called with KJo and managed to spike his 3 outer on the river.(I'm nauseous again just writing that).

I was left with 20k, and 3 big stacks to my left, which hampered me after that. Eventually, I got blinded down to 14k and then stole the blinds and antes 3 consecutive hands with 68s, 33, and 33.  Given that, I should not have have tried this:  The player who hit his 3 outer min raised to 2k from MP.  It folded to me in the BB and I shoved my QJo.  He had been mucking to other short stack 3B all-ins, but given my activity, he could easily get called light.  I should have waited since I was up to 20BBs.  He ended up calling with ATh and I couldn't catch up.  I had plenty of time to wait at 20BB, so I consider this a mistake.

So there you have it.  I can try again, in two weeks (I'm busy next Sunday), or move on.  I don't know what I'm going to do yet.

Overall, I was profitable, which wasn't expected and was a nice bonus!  Also, I feel like the starting hands tables I've been using really helped me, and kept me aggressive but not too much so, which was probably a leak of mine.  As a result, it took my tournament game to a higher level, which is a big positive too.