Caesar's Palace - Hand Summary

Here's a quick summary of Thursday's Mega stack tournament at Caesar's...

Early: Open from the button with AA. BB has been calling raises left and right and does so with mine as well. Flop is AAJ. Check check. Turn is a T, he checks I bet half pot, he calls. River is a deuce. I try a big bet here but he folds.

Nothing too exciting happens the first few levels. I lose a few chips when I raise an MP limper and the SB with KhQh, and the MP limper shoves. I fold. I nursed a short stack until I was finally able to double up when my QQ held up against AK. I chipped up well in the high-ante levels, when this hand came up:

With a starting stack of around 12K, I raised to 1800 from MP with QTo and got called by the button and the big blind. The flop was AQ2, big blind checked, I checked, and button bet $10K. BB folded and I thought for a long time before calling all-in. When button showed 33, I excitedly flipped my hand over, when to my horror, one of my cards started to fly off of the table. I have to tell you, dear readers, I have NEVER in my life made so athletic a move as to catch that card before my hand was declared dead.

I doubled up again with AK vs A6. The noteworthy thing about this is - when you're stealing away at the high-ante levels, the nice thing is that your good hands get paid off more, as this one did.

I got all the way up to 80K when I made a donkey call with AJ vs AK preflop and sucked out, and another one with A8 vs AQ and sucked out. (This is the first tournament I've won in quite awhile by getting my money in bad multiple times). Then this hand came up.

Deep-stacked old man in EP raises to 5000 (blinds 800-1600 with 200 antes). I flat call in ghe SB with 88. BB calls. Flop is J75 two-suited. I check, BB checks, old man c-bets like 2/3 of the pot. I have not seen him fail to c-bet yet, so I cautiously call. BB agonizingly folds, and I put him on JT or something like that. The turn is an interesting offsuit 4, which gives me a gutshot to go with my pair if I am behind. I check again and old man bets 20K. I agonize and make the call. The river bricks up and I get a cheap showdown vs AJ.

The rest of the tournament was pretty straightforward. After my next-to-last post, I succeeded in chipping up to about 120K, when this hand came up. Blinds 4000-8000 with 1000 antes. I limped in the SB with Kc5c. Somewhat aggressive BB checked. Flop was 654 all hearts. I led out for 18K, he flat called. The turn was the Ad, and I check called a 24K bet. The river was the 2d and checked again, then folded to a 53K river bet. BB later told me he flopped a flush, but not sure if I believe him or not. With a high flush he probably would have raised PF, and with a low one he has a mandatory raise in case I have a high heart... anyway, that hand dropped me back into short-stack mode, and I was happy to wake up with AK on the button, until BB called with JJ. And so I finally lost the race that knocked me out.

All in all, I wasn't too happy with my play in this tournament. I played good patient poker for the most part and made the one key read to keep me in the tournament. But I hate having to get lucky (with the two 3-out suckouts) and I should have done a better job protecting my chips in my blinds...