Nice day at the tables (and coulda been soooo much more)

First off, I apologize for the distinct lack of screenshots today. Honestly, I just didn't think I'd last long enough to worry about them, and even so, there weren't that many actual specific hands of interest.

Anyway, being 100+ ass hot degress in Colorado, I thought it would be a nice day to fire up ye olde poker machine, and give a run at my new favorite tournament, the weekly PokerStars $100k guarantee -- which is actually a $175k tournament capped at 17500 runners. Yup, that's right -- well over 17,000 donkeys, all fighting for a piece of the pie. At $10+1, it attracts the low buy in fools like myself, and the play is often freeroll-worthy. Just before this, I joined about 580 other runners in a $1 tourney over at FTP, just to give myself a few more hands to see.

Long story short, I Final Tables the $1 tourney -- 5th for something like $29 dollars. SHIPPIT! Around that time, we're into the 2nd hour of the madhouse. It is truly amazing to see how fast players can fall. 17,500 runners, and we're on the money bubble (2,650 paid spots) at 2nd break. It was around this time when I caught my one and only break (um, I mean major suckout), when I ran an A into a bigger A, but board paired twice on the river to chop a full house. I would have gone home just into the cash, but fortunately was saved for a while.

Late in the 3rd hour, I witnessed one of the sickest beats I'd ever seen. Stack sizes are getting pretty healthy, and the table chipleader (with around 100k, and blinds maybe 800/1600?) makes a standard 3x raise in early position. Mid position player with about 60-70k goes over the top all in, and gets a call. Original raiser has AQ. All in has KK. Flop comes JTT. Turn comes T. River comes...

...case T. So sick. I really felt bad for the guy, be way ahead on flop, turn a boat, and lose quads to higher kicker on river. Wow.

Anyway, as for myself, I managed to pour it on for a bit, and made it to the 4th hour, and the 5th. Monies started going up here, and I had visions of my first $1k payday in about 18 months in my head. Any finish 7th or higher becomes my highest score ever, and 1st was good for $19,000.

Down to about 60 players, and I'm playing aggressive. Blinds are 30,000/60,000, with antes either 2000 or 3000, and any move here is AI, including my button steal with T4 offsuit two hands before., from blinds on my left who were truly tight. I felt if I could double up once, I'd be able to truly go deep (as if besting 17440 of 17500 wasn't deep enough). Still, I had to be careful. Noted 2+2er BadgerPro was on my right, with about 2,000,000 in chips, but there wasn't a runaway chip leader.

So early position raises to 240,000, and I look down to find AKo in mid position. Early raiser has me covered. I could call and see a flop, but if I'm already behind in a race position, do I want to risk running all my chips into the flopped set that always gets me? No, I came to play, and I'm probably ahead. I'm either slightly behind, or way ahead at this point, as I don't put this particular Nederlandse player on AA or KK so I shove.

Too bad for me, my opponent called time to think about it, because when he called with A5o, I knew I was toast, when he caught his 3 outer on the turn, and IGHN in 58th spot.

PokerStars Game #11081026536: Tournament #55537478 $10+$1 Hold'em No Limit - Level XXVII (30000/60000) - 2007/07/22 - 20:16:51 (ET)
Table '55537478 276' 9-max Seat #2 is the button
Seat 1: Mondogarage (529472 in chips)
Seat 2: psidamage (872716 in chips)
Seat 3: narnuce (362872 in chips)
Seat 4: Mr. Sparco (1010172 in chips)
Seat 5: Heros_Fan (1191698 in chips)
Seat 6: Pascal@NL (2335150 in chips)
Seat 7: Mezosius (1434096 in chips)
Seat 8: Riley1_777 (1087008 in chips)
Seat 9: BadgerPro (1256280 in chips)
Mondogarage : posts the ante 6000
psidamage: posts the ante 6000
narnuce: posts the ante 6000
Mr. Sparco: posts the ante 6000
Heros_Fan: posts the ante 6000
Pascal@NL: posts the ante 6000
Mezosius: posts the ante 6000
Riley1_777: posts the ante 6000
BadgerPro: posts the ante 6000
narnuce: posts small blind 30000
Mr. Sparco: posts big blind 60000

Holecards:
Dealt to Mondogarage [ ]
FOLD Heros_Fan
FOLD Pascal@NL
RAISE Mezosius, 120000 to 180000
FOLD Riley1_777
FOLD BadgerPro
>>>Pascal@NL said, "ja is goed kom je dan ook???"
RAISE Mondogarage , 343472 to 523472 and is all-in
FOLD psidamage
FOLD narnuce
FOLD Mr. Sparco
CALL Mezosius, 343472
>>>Pascal@NL said, "ja hoor dan geef ikwel een rondje"

Flop:
[ ]

Turn:
[ ] [ ]
>>>Pascal@NL said, "oei"

River:
[ ] [ ]

Showdown:
Mezosius: shows [ ] (two pair Aces and Fives)
Mondogarage : shows [ ] (a pair of Aces)

>>>BadgerPro said "ugh gg"
Mezosius collected 1190944 from pot
>>>Mezosius said "srry"



So sick. Anyway, this is still my new favorite tournament, and my $10 became $260, so I can afford a few more runs at it. But still....ohhhh sooooo close....

As an aside, damn, there were a lot of Dutchmen at that table!