Ending August On A High

Played my last session of the month this past weekend, and it was a pretty good one. Somehow, through hook or by crook, I managed to cash in seven of fifteen events. Most of them barely more than mincashes, except for one notable deep run, and one that was aided by my catching a most fortunate four outer on the river.

This was a $4.40 buy in NLHE tourney, limited to 1000 players. I've been playing quite a few of these $4.40/1000 max events on PokerStars lately. I like the somewhat-limited field size, insofar as NLHE is concerned, because on the rare chance I can survive the donktastic play long enough to make a final table, the entire event can still be done early enough for me to get a decent night's sleep. And yes, by "donktastic play", I can sometimes be referring to myself, as happened here.

This was a 4-max event. With only four players per table, it usually stands to reason that marginal hands can gain increased value, as you're unlikely to be running into monster starting hands as often. So I actually like AJo in this situation. With around 8-10 tables left, and me holding around 10BBs, I decided to shove my AJo. Oops, ran right into AKo. Doh. The K on the flop made things a LOT worse, but the ten on the flop also gave me a tad bit of hope. Wha? Queen on the river? BINK!

So yeah, I will fully admit that every payout jump from there to the end had more to do with a lucky ducky river four outer than anything else. Cool.

Well, eventually, I did manage to parlay some good cards and well timed bets to make it to the final table, but in a pretty woeful chip position, holding around 5% or so of chips at the table:



At this point, I really expected to make it no further, and I was okay with that. However, I was not to be entirely denied. After a few orbits at the final table, I got it in BvB, and found myself in a classic race:



And once again, it took another bink on the river to stay alive and double up:



To be fair, I had a lot more outs this time, as any ace, queen, jack, or nine would have given me the hand. But once again, I'm reminded that no matter how few seats there may be at the table, just having a couple of high paint is no guarantee of leading preflop...

After a very well played game, chco9 lost his way soon after. Unfortunately, the near 600k in chips I had after that hand pretty much equated to my high water mark (though I would get back there when AK > the chip leader's A9o a couple orbits later.

In the end, with blinds and antes at 12500/25000/3125, I shoved my last 9 BBs on the with QJo on the button, and went down to K8s. The other two players each had six times my meager stack, so I was looking for a spot to get it in, and I was quite happy to just have two live cards at the time. But such is life.

Nevertheless, I once again set a personal best for most levels deep in a tourney (35), and really, how can anyone be upset about turning $4.40 into $280, especially given the four outer that should have ended my night at around twenty bucks?



So yeah, I'm pretty sure my August is done. I haven't done a great job of tracking month to month results. However, seeing as I've been pretty much a break-even MTT player at PokerStars, and yet this August saw me reach a 108% ROI and 30% ITM, I'm pretty sure this has to be one of my top three or four months ever, even if all of the actual profit came from two third place finishes.

Anyway, good luck on the felt, ya'll....and here's to August.