The next satellite lasted a bit longer and I decided to raise from the small blind with KQo against 5 limpers. Great, all 5 limpers called! The flop came JT3 rainbow, and I checked. The big blind bets out 1500. Everyone else folds to me and I tried to figure out what he had. I figured that I have 14 outs, so with the blinds going up big on the next hand, I just pushed. I was delighted (I thought) to see him turn over 89c ??!?!? Again, all I see lately is just super-aggression and I have him dominated. Then, as usual, I get run down by another 30% underdog when a K comes on the turn, and the Q comes on the river. Frustrating as hell, but what can you do but get your money in when you have the best of it. That’s OK though; I’ll just lick my wounds and get ready for this Friday’s $2.5K NL event.

• - If first to act, raise 3-5x the blinds. Most of the time, I like this strategy, but I get into trouble when faced with a re-raise or a call from a good player.
• - Push. Depending on the situation, this could be OK, but unfortunately, the only call you will get (usually) is from someone that can beat you. So, you risk too much to win just the blinds.
• - Fold. This is absolutely out of the question, UNLESS there is a significant raise in front of you and your stack is large enough to wait for a better chance because you are close to the money.
• - Limp in. Definitely not my favorite, but it does have an advantage in that you can get away cheap (hopefully) if faced with some serious action behind you.

The problem for me lately is I cannot get away from flops that are seemingly harmless (J high or worse flop). I’ve successfully thinned the field by my raise, but there is one player left that either out-flops me or has me with AA or KK. So, what’s the answer? As always, the answer is “it depends”, but more often than not, it is ME who cannot fold QQ, even with some heavy signs that they have me beat. Here is a list of my latest situations with QQ.  See if you can find a way out of these:

• - I raised 4x, folded to the button who re-raises to 10x. The player is seemingly tight, but I had just sat down and didn’t know the players well. Flop came 9xx. I went all in, he called with AK and spiked the A on the river.
• - I raised 5x, folded to the small blind who re-raises to 12x. This player is very aggressive and I’ve played with him many times. Hard to read. I called and the flop came Jxx. He pushes, and I call, but he turns over AA.
• - Raise in early position, I re-raise from middle position, and a late position player pushes. I just sat down, have an average stack, don’t know anything about anyone, and they have me covered. I call and they turn over KK.

I felt kind of bad when I finally reached the final table at 1:15am because it was her birthday, but was happy to hear that she had some luck at the video poker machines, liked the show she saw, and was having a blast.  I am so lucky to have an understanding wife when it comes to poker.  But that was just the beginning.

I had come to the final table as chip leader.  One guy was nicknaming me “Superman” because the next closest stack had 1/3 the chips I did, and I was lucky enough to run into some monster hands, and people were just, basically, dumping their chips to me.  Then, I went completely card dead for the next 3 hours!  I just sat back and watched everyone kill each other.  When it got down to 3 left, one player resorted to either folding or moving all-in.  This strategy stayed the same even when he took the chip lead!  I told him that that strategy works every time, but once.  But, he was persistent until he tried it once too often.  I limped with AKo in the small blind, thinking that there was a good chance he would push.  Sure enough, I heard “I’m all in”.  So, with authority and happiness, I said “I CALL”, and was elated to see him turn over 52o, LOL.  I just don’t’ understand this strategy.  Why commit all your chips when the only hand that will call you is one that will probably beat you?  To my horror, the flop came 2QJ rainbow.  For once, the poker gods were nice to me and blessed me with a T on the river.  He was pretty upset, but I just said “With that strategy, what did you expect was going to happen?”  It ended 3 hands later when the runner-up ran into my KK and he called all his chips off with QTs.  9 1/2 hours later, I was finally going to enjoy the Jacuzzi suite.  A Jacuzzi never felt better.

We got there yesterday around 3pm, and even though there were a ton of people piling into the lot, parking was very convenient. We bypassed the parking structure, made our way around to the west side, where I heard the poker room was located. The lot was packed, but we found a spot on the outskirts, and it still only took a couple minutes to get into the casino. When we walked in, all we could say was WOW. They went all-out for this casino. Nice hard wood floors for walking around, beautiful chandeliers everywhere, music, bars everywhere, awesome pool scene, and this place was hopping. The layout is fantastic I think. As I expected, the first thing I saw was the poker room, right next to a fantastic looking sports book. We spent a good hour just wandering around looking at all the amenities. The pit area is very unique. It was laid out in a huge circular area that surrounded a very lavish looking bar. I must say that the layout is the best I have seen, so you have to go check it out if you are in town.

Now to the important stuff; the poker room. All of their 20 tables were full and the waiting list was filling up fast. I put my name on the 10/20 half-kill hold’em game and the 2/5NL and waited about 20 minutes before I was seated at the 2/5 game. The experience so far was very cool. All of the poker room managers were nice and helpful, and the cash in/out area is nicely laid out, so I got my buy-in and headed for my open seat. The tables were beautiful, with a marble “racetrack” style area for your chips, and nice “skinny” red felt tables. The tables were nice and long and I seemed to be pretty comfortable there, even though I didn’t like the chairs too much since they didn’t adjust. Everything is automated at the tables. You give them your “Boarding Pass” (comp card) which is slid through a card-reader, the push a button to make sure that your card is “live” and your seat is generating the comps. All the tables have card shufflers, and a digital readout in front of it to tell the dealer whose card was swiped and clocking the dealers in and out. The dealers were fast and efficient, but I wish I could say the same for the waitresses. It took 30 minutes to see the first one, and 20 minutes to get my bottle of water after I ordered. All in all, a very good experience. I left up after about an hour and a half of playing, but will definitely need to come back again and monitor the scene there. The play was pretty tight because of all the locals checking it out. The poker action was a little slow for my taste but hopefully things will settle down a bit after all the frenzy. Then again, maybe it was just my table.

Shortly before the 2nd break, I had to push again with JJ as my stack was dwindling.  I was not happy to see a young man who was playing like a complete rock re-raise me all in to my left, but was thrilled to see him turn over 99, and I had my 2nd double up before we got to move to the main tournament room.  I still had the same players and seat from the main room, and shortly before the table got broken, I picked up QQ and pushed again.  This time I was up against AKo, but when he didn’t improve, my stack was finally half way decent, but still a ways off from the average.

I had survived 7.5 hours for once.  There were only 70 players left, and they were paying 50.  I started to feel confident that I could do this, and I was playing great.  I had made some great moves that I was very proud of, including a squeeze play with 56c against a raiser and a caller, which worked great because I thought that the original raiser was just playing a bit reckless with his large stack.  My final hand was very exciting.  I had picked up AKo in early position and decided to just push and not mess around with my smallish stack.  The guy to my left called after some thought, and the small blind thought for awhile too, so I wanted him to call also.  The pot was monstrous after he finally pushed also.  Unfortunately, he had JJ, but I was thrilled to see AQo to my left!  I would have cruised into the money if I hit, but a Q flopped and it was over.  I walked away a little disappointed, but overall, very happy with my showing, and got some great experience and much needed encouragement from my previous terrible showings.

So, lets run some numbers now.  I figure that you probably see about 25 hands an hour during normal play.  Since I lasted about 3 /12 hours, I saw roughly 85 hands. So, in that amount of time, I should have seen at least 5 pocket pairs, AKo probably once, AQo or AJo at least once, and a pair or any hand with an A in it at least 21 times.  This is what I consider a “normal” distribution of cards.  In the last 5 tournaments, I have not gotten anywhere near these numbers, and I am not exaggerating.  I had 4 pocket pairs, and won on two of those fortunately.  I never had AK, AQ, or AJ.  In fact, I had maybe 10 hands with an A in it the whole time.  I had some trapping hand like JT suited and KQ suited, but could play them because of the action in front of me.

On my last table, which was comprised of John Phan and Devilfish to my right, and Amir Vahedi 3 seats to my left.  It was a very interesting table and was fun to see some of the pros play.  My last hand was against John.  I picked up my 4th pocket pair (99) on the button after John raised 3x the big blind. I decided to just call and see a flop because, with his monstrous stack, I knew he would call if I pushed.  The flop came 883 with two clubs.  John bet 1500 and I decided that he had two overs, so I pushed my remaining 3600 in.  I knew he would call but I figured I had him beat so far, and I was right when he called and turned over AQo.  My day ended when a Q came on the turn.  Another frustrating tournament showing, but I’ll have my day in the sun one day, if I can just get some cards to play with, and have my favorites actually hold up.

Fortuantely, the other thing I look forward to is the side games at these larger tournaments. The main poker room was packed, and because of my early exit in the tournament, was able to grab a 30/60 seat fairly quickly. This was a fun table. There were a couple guys here from the tournament also, and it’s interesting to see how these guys throw money around after a tournament, looking to get their money back. I managed to win some of my money back, but again, I noticed how different the distribution of cards were. In those 3 hours, I had at least 15 pocket pairs including AA and KK twice, and many suited connectors which go well with such a rammin jammin game. Just wish I could get anywhere near these types of cards in the larger tournaments.

I only had an hour before the tournament, and I just didn’t want to sit there like a rock, in fear of losing my 2K, so I tried to get involved early and lose that image right away.  Luckily for me, I got slapped in the face with the deck and took advantage of it.  In one hour, I had AA, KK, TT twice each, QQ once, and an assortment of trapping hands like JQh, 78s, and such that I played in late position.  It was fun to get involved and had already pushed my entire stack in 3 times against big raises.  It was very nerve wracking, but fun at the same time.  I was up about 5K at one point, when my AA went down in flames to a guy that cold called my 5x raise preflop, then pushed on a seamlessly harmless flop of Q93 rainbow.  When I bet 600, and he pushed, I figured I was up against trips, but I couldn’t lay it down because it cost me only 1K more to call and it was worth it to me. He had pocket 9’s and I lost a bundle on that one.

The most interesting hand of the whole day occurred after I had been pounding at this older gentleman most of the time and had apparently gotten him frustrated by re-raising him numerous times when he didn’t bet enough on the flop.  Every time he did this, it was apparent he was just trying to steal and it was very obvious he was starting to tilt. Anyway, I limped with TT on the button after 2 other players limped. The old guy raised the pot to 270.  One of the other players called, and I called to see a flop of AQ6 rainbow.  He, again, bet only 300 into a pot of 860, which signaled to me weakness, and after the other player folded, I raised to 1200.  He started thinking for a bit, but called, which didn’t make me feel too good about my hand all of a sudden.  He checked the turn when a 5 fell, and after that huge call after my raise, I decided to check behind him.  The river brought a beautiful T, but it was a little problematic because now there was a straight and a flush on board.  He checked again, so I decided that my trips were good and made a value bet of 600.  He, surprisingly, re-raised all in, and now I had to take some time to think it through.  After about 2 min of pondering what he could possibly have, I ended up putting him on KK and he was tilting.  There is no way he would have checked a straight or flush on the river with the amount he was down already.  So I called, and he didn’t want to show his cards at first.  I pushed my stack in and said again  “I call !”.  His hesitation made me feel a lot better because I knew I had him beat now, but he was refusing to turn his hand over, so I just sat there with my protector over my cards waiting for him to do something.  He said  “I have Kings”. I said,  “So, you are folding?”.  Finally, he threw his hand face down towards the dealer and he mucked them. I picked up both my cards and showed him one ten (I know, kind of cheesy to do that, but he was acting like an ass for the whole hour).  He flips out and grabs the cards our of my hand , then proceeds to throw them face up to everyone.  I was flabbergasted, and didn’t even know how to react.  I decided to just smirk and let it slide knowing that I had him really tilting now.

The tournament was starting, so I got up, but I think maybe I should have stayed a bit more since he came back with another pile of chips, just ready for someone to take away.