Tonight was the second week in a row chopping top two at a live tournament.  Nice little pull down this time.  Add an additional $20 for the last-longer with Philip.  The evening didn’t start off so well, and the guy two seats to my right hit a couple of HUGE hands early and grabbed a MONSTER stack, preventing me from making moves with less than optimal hands.  When Philip hit his desperation inside straight on the river when he was way past committed, I started to feel like a shrinking violet.  I hung around long enough to watch him get knocked off, so there was a bit of a refund there.  But then came the Miracle Gro….

I got a pusher when I was in position pre-flop with kings.  I re-raised him all-in and he called after a quick hesitation.  He asked if I have aces, which I honestly replied, but his heart sunk when he saw the kings.  Good news for him:  His queens hit a set on the flop.  Bad news for him:  So did my kings.  I did a quick tally and realized I wasn’t in bad shape any more.  In fact, I could start using the weapons I’ve been honing at the cheapy online sit-and-gos.

Raise at a time, I managed to pad my stack to a comfy place…pretty even with Sunny on my left and a bit more than Slick on my right.  I was challenged a couple times and laid down a few raises.  Colt had just enough juice to push me out of a hand that I found out we both had AT suited.  It didn’t take long before I got those chips back, so it wasn’t so bad.

Down to three players, it was me, the former HUGE stack (who was now about my stack size) and Colt on the short stack.  He managed to get a couple of nice breaths in when neither of us big stacks could find cards strong enough to force him to lay down.  Eventually, Colt called my AK all in with A4 and I dragged the rest of his chips, giving me a slight advantage heads-up.  It was 1:00, so I figured it was a good place to chop.   Hopefully this carries over next week with the winners tourney at CH.  Not only is it a bigger buy-in, but that would be major respect points.

Oh…and I just remembered it was Friday the 13th.  CREEEEEPY!