MTT last night

Perhaps I spoke a bit too soon about my MTT game when I thought I was playing poorly. Last night I entered a $30 tourney on pokerstars that started at 8:30 and had 725 entrants. 5 hours and 10 minutes later, it was over, and I took down first place prize money after a chop when heads up.

It was a strange tourney. I was down to 900 chips in the first hour, but doubled to 2200 with TT vs. AT. Then maintained by steals, and doubled again when I pushed J4o with 2 limpers to pick up $700 in dead money and got called by 43s (WTF). Then doubled to 10K with AJ vs KQ.

I was not getting the most premium hands, AA-QQ. In fact, until this point, I had not had AA-QQ. I was getting enough decent hands, however, to get into situations as modest favorites most of the time. Pretty soon, however, I started winning coinflips. Won 5k more to 15k by winning with JJ vs. AK. I stole my way to 18K with little over the next few orbits, then finally got KK and someone with AQ did not beleive me (I had been stealing), and suddenly I was up to 30K, double the average. At 30K, I actually think I played my best poker. With little to work with, I managed to only fall back to 24K as the average when from 14K to 34K. I was able to stay "in the game" and not be blinded out too much over the course of 10 orbits or so. Then, was able to steal back to 30K, just barely behind the average.

I picked up 88 and gambled vs. AK and won to get to 70K, lost a bit when a guy flopped a set of Ks, but then won a big pot multiway with 99 when I made a good turn call. Up to 90K. From there, I rotated who I stole from, chipped up a bit, won two more coin flips (AT vs. 33) and (JJ vs. AQ), and was the chip leader with 12 left. What I was happy with, is that I was the aggressor in these situations. I lost a small coin flip to push me down a bit, but was doing great going into the final table.

At the final table I flopped a set of JJ early to start things off well, then just played poker. Stole a bit, made a couple hands, lost some on failed plays, but kept increasing my stack until 3 handed I had 600 K and my opponents had 200 and 300K. I lost all in vs. the 200K player, and he ended up busting the shortie, so I got heads up with almost a 3-1 chip disadvantage. I got lucky and doubled with K5 vs. A7, which gave me a small chip lead, the other guy offered a chop, and we ended it.

It is interesting to look at all the big all ins I won prior to the final table:

TT vs. AT (68% to win)
JJ vs. AQ (56%)
AT vs. 33 (47%)
KK vs. AQ (71%)
88 vs. AK (55%)
AJ vs. KQ (60%)
J4 vs. 43 (64%)
JJ vs. AK (56%)

The odds of winning all of these is 1.5%. Now, I was not all in on some of these (opponent was), but they all helped in a) getting to the final table, and b) getting there with lots of chips. I had one all in that I can recall PF that I did not win prior to the final table, and was lucky that THAT all in was one that only for 20% of my stack when I had over double the average. However, this shows the luck involved. By going 7-1 in flips, I got to the final table tied for 2nd chip position. In this tourney, 1.2% of players got to the final table. I played well, and had slightly better than a 1.5% chance of getting there (albeit with a lot of chips).

This is somewhat reassuring to think about with my previous "slump". I played supurb this tourney (IMO), and got myself into situations where I had a 1.5% chance of making the final table (the odds are almost certainly understated, since I lost one coin flip and would not have busted if I had lost several of the others). These odds were considerably better than those a random player would have had, especially since I was down to 900 chips early. However, it still takes quite a bit of luck to win a tournament.