Shooting Star - Day 2

According to Card Player, there are 138 players remaining in the field from an original size of 376. 45 places will pay. I am ranked 29th out of the 138, although my chip stack is just a tad below average. The bubble will be around 7:30PM PST if similar to last year. Also, there are 16 bounty players remaining.

For those of you who are following on cardplayer.com, the hand where I took the chip lead (briefly) was totally misreported. Here's what really happened. I started the hand with about 44K in chips, Thu had me covered. Blinds were 100-200.

Thu raised UTG to 700, I flat called in UTG+2 with 22, BB called.

Flop was A82, Thu bet out 1000. I meant to raise to 2500 (5 yellow chips) but grabbed
the wrong color chips (doh!) and raised to 5000 (5 blue chips) instead. He called
which I figured was AK, AQ or a set.

Q came on the turn, he checked, I bet another 5000, he reraised me to
15000, leaving me 13000 behind. He had me covered. I decided to call it down, and when the 9 came on river, Thu put me all in. I said "I'm not good enough to fold this" and called.

The comment about the yell was accurate. I received a warning for
excessive celebration. :-)


Here are details on the hand that I lost the lead. I had 7s6s in late position. Blinds are 150-300 with 25 ante. Guy to my right with about 40k in chips raises to 1100. I read this as a steal attempt but decide to call in position, because the big blind is a weak player and I want him in the hand. Big blind calls, flop comes 754 with two hearts. This is a pretty big flop for me, with top pair and an open ended straight draw. BB checks, original raiser c-bets 2000. I raise to 6000, which puts a total of about 12000 in the pot. BB now goes all in for a total of 29000, so it is 23000 for me to call into a pot of 41000. If BB has a set or a made straight, these are not proper odds (I need to be about 36% or better to win, and am only 25% to win vs. these hands)

Against the hand i was actually up against (Qh 7h for top pair plus a flush draw), I also had improper odds. But remember, BB was weak. I have seen him make very similar moves with overpairs, with or without flush draws. Against Ah Kh, I am even money (and have a huge overlay on the call), and I'm only a 45% dog against Ad Ac (overpair without a heart).

Another consideration in my call was this: the chip leader at the end of day 1 gets a $10,000 bonus (real money, not tournament chips). I felt this type of call was necessary to help build my stack aggressively to try to get that bonus (not to mention to further my position in the tournament). If I lost, the chips were going to a weak player, and I would still have a strong chip stack at the table.

So I made the call, but not help came. One friend I talked to hated both my flop raise and my big call... I would be interested in hearing other opinions.

OK time to get ready! Will send my next message from the casino.