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!

I’ve always been told that another element to becoming an expert poker player is the ability to create your own luck. Guys like Ivey and Negreanu seem to get the dealers to pluck cards from the bottom of the deck…and others are constantly bemoaning that they’re always the victim in the ever-present runner runner one-out bad beat story. I’m certainly not claiming true enlightenment here, but I think I’ve got a much better understanding of how each extreme comes to fruition. In a word…pressure.

I think the lesson I’ve learned in the last few days is that you’re either imposing pressure on the rest of the table or being guided by it yourself. The sick beats come when you don’t have the pressure that comes along with being the one all-in. A lot of my philosophy previous to this point relied on strictly surviving the early rounds to get to a point where my raises counted for more. I kept falling into a trap where unless the deck was thrown at me, I got one or two swings at around M7-10 and if it worked, I survived…and if it didn’t, I was at the mercy of pressure. When I got fortunate and the hands worked, I got back in that cycle of just pushing the good hands at the high yellow M and praying to survive.

These little sit and go’s I’ve been playing are providing more value than the pay-offs. I’ve been experimenting with trap tactics in the early rounds, while my M is still green. I’m not as afraid to call raises with low to medium pairs (even out of position) or suited connectors (in position), assuming the folded missed flop would keep my M in the green. It’s the hands where my play is opposite my style where I make the most profit…and the early rounds in the tournament are where I can use that idiom to give me ammunition for applying the pressure in phase 2 and 3. If I bust out of the tournament early because I expected him to fold to a re-raise where I have 10 outs, so be it. If he calls and I get lucky, so much the better. THAT is when the rest of the board needs to fear me. They’ll think I’m just a luck sack, but I control the pressure.

I knew things were starting to feel a little easier when I qualified last night for a huge Stars tournament on Sunday.  One hand…no, one CARD saved me from being blinded out, as the second lowest stack in the tourney lost to a queen on the river to bubble just before I was to get the big blind which would put me all in.  Sure…it was just a prize of $11, but it was a fortune to me emotionally.  There are SO many people in the tourney on Sunday…I’m not going to sweat if I don’t get the incredible amount of luck I’d need to cash.  Being there on a qualifier will be prize enough for me.

Tonight, I managed to finally land in the right place at the right time a couple times..and even in the wrong place when I needed to be.  My evening started out wonderfully.  I raised 3xBB from middle position with aces and the flop came out A22.  I checked and smooth called 600 chips.  The next card was a Jack, which I bet out 1000 at and was re-raised all-in.  Luckily enough for me, he had just caught his set of Jacks.

I continued to play pretty tight aggressive, picking up a few nice pots with smart raises.  I got lucky a couple of times and hit a couple more sets.  It was a $5 bounty tourney, and I managed to collect six silver pesos (bounty markers) by the end of the night.  One that I was especially proud of was when I called Bonnie’s short stack all-in for  ~1600 chips with pocket sixes and they held up vs. two overs.  I have to win those sorts of hands to build the kind of stack to compete for first.

I even managed to survive an extended dry spell.  I allowed myself to drop below M5 again tonight, because there was a lot of pre-flop raising going on and the average M spelled desperation for most of the final table participants.  Where I got REALLY lucky is when I tried to make a play for the BB as I raised 6000 with QT and was re-raised all in (I had him barely covered) with his AA.  Queen on the flop, Ten on the river.    I held on to chop 1st and 2nd with Lenny…who really should have considered trying to bust me out, as doubling up once would still leave me behind him.

Regardless, I did well tonight, and managed to qualify for an invite-only (have to have placed 1st or 2nd this year at a CH tourney) $75 freezeout in two weeks.  That’ll be a lot of fun, I’m sure.

Okay…it’s late.  I’m off to bed.  Lots of work tomorrow throwing away crap from the old apartment.  Oooh… Massage tomorrow at 2.  That’s going to help a lot. 

Jen and I signed up at the last minute for the $50 NLHE at Longhorn since we both have today off and could sleep in.  21 total entries (two tables with one alternate).  Standard format for their $50 freezeouts…10,000 starting chips with 20 minute blinds, starting at 25/50.  Antes come into play starting round four.   I love deep stacks with early antes. 

I started the evening off well, having won a juicy pot early which netted me an extra thousand chips.  That’s when the evening started getting interesting…

The player two seats to my left was someone I didn’t recognize, but had apparently played there a few times before.  Smart-looking guy, but he was leaking chips like Rosie O’Donnell on Alli.  Phil, who I typically have a running $10 last-longer side bet with, was the primary beneficiary of said chips, with Slick managing to catch some of the run-off as well.  I knew something was afoot, as my spidey-sense told me this guy wasn’t your garden variety donkey.  My suspicions were proven correct when he was the second to call a 600 chip raise, and proceeded to slow play the 46 suited into a monster pot when the flop came up with two sixes.  Guy to my right flipped out and came pretty close to being asked to leave.  From that point, everyone started playing catch the (supposed) donkey, and the donkey usually won.  Totally threw off the dynamic of the table.

I tried to lay back in the weeds and wait for a good spot, but with the jackal to my left, I knew it wasn’t going to be easy.  I’d raise pretty strong with a hand like AQ, get two or three callers, see a flop like K66 (always a pair of sixes) and fold to an overbet.  Then my cards decided to freeze up.  I went two hours without as much as a middle suited connector.  And the one or two hands that did come completely missed the flop with two or three callers.

When my M got down to around 5, I started looking for a place to shove in…but the table was so screwy that there wasn’t a hand that wasn’t raised and called by multiple people, since they were all trying to catch the donkey with his pants down.  Sunny was low stacked as well, but he started getting decent cards and doubling up.  I didn’t have the luxury…six hands in a row where the first card dealt to me was a 9 and the second was uncoordinated.  I thought about the hands where I could have been first in the pot all in, but almost without fail I folded and would have wound up dominated.  Q9 offsuit is no good vs. AQ suited.

Finally…with my M just over 3, I see a ray of sunshine.  Pocket fours!  Best hand in two hours….so I throw my 2400 chips in over top of the player to my right’s 2000 chip bet.  I figure I’m at worst 20%…but ended up better than expected when he called and turned over AQ offsuit.  Still…that sinking feeling didn’t go away.  Much like last week when Jav called my AK with 25 suited and hit a 5…I saw this coming.  Flop was A6Q, turn was another ace.  Not even close.

It’s been way too long since I’ve cashed at Longhorn.  It used to be a regular occurrence.  Still…you can’t win when you aren’t dealt cards and everyone’s calling the raises.  I can’t give myself too much grief for last night, can I?

Almost seven hours into the tournament the blinds were 200/400 with a 50 chip ante. I had played tight and aggressive the whole way through, winning a couple nice pots but mostly folding my blinds away. My M was somewhere between 8-9 (~8800-9900), which put me not in a position of desperation, but certainly needing to make moves to get closer to 15-20. I had been moved five times, which is a lot from what I’ve been told. About ten hands into the new table, I’m not the short stack, but there are quite a few monster stacks around me.

I’m in the cutoff (one seat to the right of the button…good position), and the only player to enter the pot was a limper with a big stack two seats to my right. He was a friendly guy who was wearing a black baseball cap embroidered with a tribute to Cory Lidle, the Yankees pitcher who crashed into a building not too long ago…apparently one of his best friends. I look down at pocket eights. Not the greatest hand in the world, but it’ll do, pig. Normally I would limp and hope to hit a set, but the table is playing pretty tight aggressive. I figured I didn’t have the M to limp with a middle pair too many more times, only to fold to a raise or bad flop. I raised with position to 1600 (4 x BB), hoping to steal the blinds and get the limper to go away. It folds around to the limper, who calls.

At this point, I start thinking about his possible holdings: Maybe a low pair, Ace-X suited, a suited connector or two face cards. He certainly wasn’t proud of his hand pre-flop. The dealer turns out a flop of 567 rainbow…a very nice flop for me. I have an overpair to the board as well as an open-ended straight draw. Even if I’m beat now, my ten outs give me about 40% to win. I like the flop, but realize it’s not enough of a lock to add value unless it improved. There was 4300 chips in the pot.

He examines the board for a moment and throws out a feeler bet…I think it was only something like 1600 chips. I figured he was betting enough to scare me away if my AK was no good but not enough to commit if I played back at him. He had made a couple laydowns in my brief time at the table, and I didn’t have the chips to risk his catching an overcard on the turn or river, so I shoved all in. He hesitated briefly, but made the call with his pocket tens. His hand surprised me, as he would be hurt badly if I had won the hand with the obvious holdings of a set or straight. Unfortunately, help did not arrive on the turn or river.

I didn’t have the best hand when I pushed all in, but I’m not so sure about his call. Limp calling with tens preflop out of position isn’t optimal. Fortunately for him, he was in the wrong place at the right time. I wasn’t getting away from that hand after the flop, since I needed to take risks and double up at least a couple times to stay competitive. Overall, I’m happy with my play against the best of the best. I outlasted a large portion of the field and have my first taste of top-level play.