Weekend recap

On Friday I played in a final 20-person SNG to tune up for Saturday's tournament. I won the whole thing. I did it by playing my M to perfection. It also helped that early on I eliminated 3 players on one hand. That is right, I quadrupled up in the very early stages with my nut str8. I caught the str8 on the turn and the betting went bet, raise, re-raise all-in me, call call call. I thought for sure I was splitting, but the guys had either 2 pair or the low end. This stroke of luck enabled me to withstand a ridiculouse suckout late and still win the thing. I was confident going into Saturday.

On Sat night, I played well. Maybe a little loose, but I was still in the final 2 tables. As soon as we got down to 2 tables my M was 4 and I started to go all-in. Luckily mostly I wasn't called and after 3 times my M was 7 and I was in good shape. Ken went all-in and was called by the player to his left who was short and I called with AK and had the other guy covered, but was short of Ken. The other guy and I both had AK and we split the side pot and I won the side pot. My M was up to around 10 and I could tell from table discussion (they were openly discussing the wild nature of our table with all of the all-ins) that most of the table did not know the proper strategy. With an M of 10 and hearing some moaning, I figured I would slow down a bit. Then this hand came up. Ken bet 600 and was raised all-in 1,700. I had the raiser covered, and possibly Ken. I looked down to find KK. I re-raised all in. Ken reluctantly folded and villian turned over AA. I did not improve. Looking back, I should have just called hoping Ken would have entered and then going all-in on a non ace flop. I don't know though, I had to figure that I had the best hand and was trying to get my money in the middle. As it turned out, that was the hand that crippled me. I lost a little while latter when Ken sucked out on me.

After the tournament I played in a cash game with some really bad players. I played my normal selective-aggressive play. I also took full advantage of a drunk guy on my right. I ended up winning 40 for the game and thus 10 for the night. The take-away is that I played pretty well. I am studying a NLHE tournament book and hopefully I can win the next one.