Week 23: Semi-finals #2

I managed to qualify again, with the exact same stack as last week: 26.5k.  What that means is that I have effectively removed 26.5k chips from the finals total chip count since we forfeit our lowest stacks.  I had a 38.5k stack at one point with 12 left, but was being appropriately aggressive on the bubble since my table was really tight, and lost 1/3 when I ran into a good hand.

There were 3 20k+ stacks and 2 10-15k stacks, and I surmised that I wasn't going to get called on my PF raises by anything less than a 10% hand.  Well, that's exactly what happened when I ran Q9s into JJ in the SB.  I raised to 6k @ 1k/2k level, she shipped for 12.5k total and I had to call the extra 6k.  She flopped a set to add insult to injury.  From there, I treaded water on my stack, shoving with anything decent to steal blinds so I was fluctuating between 20.5k and 26.5k.

I wasn't the only one to earn himself a second entry to the finals.  A man named Jim, who qualified last Tuesday with a 61k stack, qualified again with a 75.5k stack!  That means he has removed those 61k from play.  That's good because the more chips removed from the table, the more valuable the chips that I have become.

I'm going to do another full Finals analysis later in the week.  I'm going to call the poker room tonight to find out how many players there will be for the final flight.  I found out that last Tuesday was the night with the most entries by far, so that really changes my analysis from last week.  The good news is that one of the nights finished at the 1k/2k blind level, so I'll have a little more play in the Finals.

As for my overall play this week, I started out a little loose, and dropped my 10k down to 8.5k pretty quick.  I was able to buckle down, and honestly was happy to get a streak of really bad cards that I was happy to fold away.  It had been so long since I had seen a playable hand that when I raised A9o in mid position, everyone was in a hurry to fold!  I got dealt AA the very next hand and raised the exact same amount.  I had hoped that someone would think I was trying to get out of line, and I got lucky when the man next to me shoved.  I insta-called and he showed AK and I won.  With that, I had a 20k stack, and was in very good position to be patient or aggressive.  I chose patient because there was a player 2 to my left that was calling EVERYTHING!  He wasn't going anywhere, and so I just chose to wait things out.  I did my part calling short stack all-ins and winning small pots here and there to work my way up to the 38.5k high point.  But the fact is, that AA had was the one defining hand of the night.

Cash games went well early and crappy late.  I won $100 before the tourney and lost $400 after.

-295 1/2 NLHE
+148 3/6 LHE
-443 3/6 LO8
+162 tourney
+200 promos
-19 Food
=-247