I am a happy happy girl! I took down the Tournament of Champions yesterday at the Cable Bridge all by my little old self!! I do not play a lot of expensive tournaments, so I do not obviously make a living playing poker, but this was my biggest payout to date - $1220!! (My second biggest was a deepstack at the Crazy Moose for $900.) Not bad for a $30 buy-in.
I am even happier because I honestly feel that my decision-making process during this tournament was at a rare level. Early in the tournament, Gary raised to 3 times the big blind and another guy reraised to 1,000 right behind him. When I got to the button and found my pocket 10s, I stopped for a good 30 seconds to think about it instead of just pushing all-in. For various reasons (mainly the players involved) I ended up going all-in with the 10s. Gary folded and the other guy took a while to call (which made me feel better) and ended up calling with pocket 8s and I doubled up. There were several other instances during the tournament when I took longer than usual to think about things and eventually made the right play. I believe that I am getting much better with my decision-making based on position, players involved, hand selection, chip stack, etc., than I have been in the past.
At the final table, I was almost the shortest stack. I battled valiantly if I do say so myself and still only had about 24,000 chips when there were three players left. Gary (not the same Gary from above) had about 40,000 and Bob (there were about 6 Bobs in this tournament and I don't know his last name) had us both covered with an outrageous chip stack of 101,000!!
My lucky hand against Gary was A-4 offsuit. I had 20,000 left and just pushed all-in with it. He was down to about 30,000 at that point and called with A-Q. I spiked a four on the flop and it held up. Gary was crippled and went out shortly thereafter. When Bob and I went head's up, Bob had at least a three to one chip lead on me. Our important hand came after I had clawed my way to almost even. I held 9-6 offsuit and Bob had 6-2 offsuit. The flop came 4-5-6 and Bob pushed all-in with top pair and a straight draw. I thought about it and then called with top pair. He never got his straight and I was now chip leader!!
After a couple more small hands, I was dealt A-5 suited (clubs) and put Bob all-in. He called with K-J suited (spades) and my hand held up. I was the champion!! I was so totally excited and happy you wouldn't believe it. I never once imagined that I could overcome Bob's huge chip advantage, but I did it. I really believe in myself now. I received many nice congratulations and I am in 7th heaven for at least this week!! :)
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Totally Awesome Lynne!!!! You are playing very well, and getting some great results. You are truly a champion.
On another topic, the moose cash games suck. I won $250 on Sunday, and gave back $150 last night. I could not get a hand to hold up...usually getting snapped by some garbage. Examples: pocket kings snapped on river by a 6/8 offsuit that made a straight (on the river), pocket 10's that got reraised and 6/9 suited called three bets cold and made a flush on the turn (I flopped a set), and trip 8's with ace kicker that lost to trip 8's with a 10 kicker that made a straight on the river. My $150 loss would have been a break even with even one of those hands holding up.
But, as I have been saying...it is the good decision making that makes money in the long run, and these players are just not making wise decisions.
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