Out 28th out of 57. Turns out Jim and I only had one more join us as the only three to qualify for the finals twice. Not that it made much difference, but the interesting thing is that the chip numbers worked out as I expected. About 17.5M chips in play with just about 30k average stack. The most interesting thing they did was drop the starting blind levels to 500/1k, even though the lowest semi was 1k/2k, They decided that it would be better for the players which was true. However, they were already at 4k/8k after 1 hour, which is the level I busted. So the average stack was 60k, which is only 7.5BB.
I'm proud of my play overall. The only hiccups I'd say was that I wasn't expecting 500/1k, and so I ended up with an awkward situation because I was so "deep". The blinds had just passed in my first orbit and I was on the button. It folded to me and I decided to raise to 3k with 8s5s. It's not a terrible hand to raise the button if you think there is a high probability that you can steal. It failed miserably as both blinds called. I ended up having to fold to the BB's shove on a 9d8h4d flop. The SB finally made the call after some deliberation, and the BB had Td3d vs Ad9h for the SB. BB hit her river T and crippled the BB. Now, had that 4 been a 5, I would have had a lot of chips to play with.
The next hiccup was with a 22k stack at 1k/2k, I raised UTG with AcQc to 6k, and got called in 2 spots. What's really annoying is that people weren't really calling raises and yet, my first 2 raises are called in 2 spots, including the big stack in the BB. He effectively shoved on the Jd9d3s flop, and I folded as did the other player. So I was down to 16k from 26.5k starting stack and the blinds are creeping. Thankfully, I got JJ after the big stack to my right limped, I shoved, and then the SB flat called, and the big stack folded. I'm glad he did because he flashed 22, and he would have beat my by the river. Thankfully the SB was being quite loose calling with Ts7s, and I doubled back to 27k. I managed to steal some blinds with TT, AQ and A7 to get my stack to a high of 41k, but then went 2 orbits, one at 2k/4k and the other at 4k/8k where there was only one questionable fold on my part. I might have opened shoved with A3o at 2k/4k, but given how active I had just been, and there were still 6 people behind me to act, I think folding is correct there. Unfortunately, I got crap 9-high or worse hands from there on out.
Just after we passed the blinds at 4k/8k at my table, we broke as we were down to 30. I got moved to another table, and was fortunate to be far from the blinds. I was down to 23k, and fortunate again to have short stacks on my left. It was pretty clear that I was going to shove any 2 cards at that point if it was folded to me, but 3 different players ahead of me all shoved 3 consecutive hands, and either won the blinds or doubled up. Then I was in a little predicament. The largest stack (>100k) was now in the BB for 8k. No matter what 2 cards I have, he's calling. So, I had to figure out my threshold for shoving. I settled on any pair, any A, any 2 cards T or bigger, and suited K's and bigger suited Qs (Q9, Q8).
I was lucky to be dealt Ad7h. I shoved, he predictably called, but only after the SB took a long time to fold. He had 44, and unfortunately, that's the sort of hand that only he, with so many chips, can be in a position to call with. I lost the race and was done. Within 8 minutes, they had knocked out another 7 players and were down to 20.
They called for a 10 minute break, and I decided that that was enough watching for me and it was time to come home.
Overall, I profited from the tourney series and gave myself a chance at a big score. I'm feeling quite happy about my play, and am looking forward to going back as they are repeating this structure with a 10k entry to a WPT event in Vegas in November.
Tomorrow I celebrate my birthday, and then on Tuesday I'm off to Vegas for event #48: $1500 PLO8. I'm excited! I'll check off something I've wanted to do for a very long time!
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