Friday night charity poker, strikes again!

So Friday afternoon, Harry contacts me and asks if I'm playing poker tonight. While I had thought about it, wasn't sure if I was going to play or not. Headed back up to 4 Aces on the East side for their 9 pm deep-stack tourney. Go back a couple of weeks to see the structure...suffice to say, I am a big fan of it.

Didn't care one way or another about seating assignment, though I had a very solid (and aggressive player to my right), but 2 players on my left who I knew I could abuse their blinds if I needed to. 68 players this time, which made for a very nice prize pool, indeed!

Didn't get much to play with first hour, though I managed to run starting stack from 20K to 22K in this time. Only hand of note was losing a third of my chips on one hand with A-K, and it turned out I had the right read on my opponent, which saved me some chips. Won a couple of pots before the break to get back to the 16-17K area.

Chipped up right after the break back to original 20K or so, then was moved to a back table for a few hands. Luckily, while the blinds were at 2K/4K, I was able to fold 4 hands with no cost to me via the blinds - and THEN another table move, this time down to 3 tables, and blinds up to 3K/6K. My first orbit at the table, was able to triple up to 60K without having to show down cards...I was very fortunate to move to a table of tighties, and I was pushing marginal hands like Q-J as long as I had the important "first-in vigorish", as Dan Harrington said in his excellent series of books that you must purchase (or at least read) if you are a NLHE tournament player.

At this time is our second break, and the solid player from my first table and I are holding court in the smoking area outside, saying how amazing it is that people have no about Ms, avg stack needed to get to final table, and how people are so easy to create their own landmines by their own play.

After break is over, we go down to 2 tables after one hand, then the action gets interesting. With blinds at 5K/10K, I knockout one player who jammed his last 45K with K-Q, only to have me call with A-5 and have my pair of 5's hold up. Drop down to 70K, then lose 10K in the BB on a sick hand (with 13 or 14 left) that at the time thought might cost me a lot of money:

UTG - 90K - all-in
Cutoff - Insta-calls
BB (me) - 8-8....errrrrrrrrrrrr, goes into the tank.

Since no action is dependent on me here, I think about my opponent's possible holdings out loud, saying that I guarantee I have at least one of them beat, and may even have the best hand, but after a couple of minutes, of talking, I decide that I am not going to put my tourney on the line just yet, and fold face-up. A loud F-bomb comes out of my mouth after I see UTG flip over 7-7 and cutoff A-K...then a small sigh of relief after seeing a 7 hit the flop, only to be followed by a sick feeling when an 8 hits on the turn, grrrrr. Hey, trust your read and go with it, even if it's the wrong read. Really could have used a triple up here, however.

The next hand, I wake up in the SB and see J-J, and on this hand I triple up after doubling up through bigger stack, and knocking out A-K player from previous hand. 2nd table loses a player and we're down to a final table!

7th was paying $35 (buy-in fee), and it was agreed to take $70 off of first, and $35 off of second, and pay $35 to 8th through 10th place. Sitting at 170K in chips, and with 1.36 million chips in play, I am above the chip average, at least. 2 biggers stacks directly to my left, older lady is a couple spots to my right, and shorties all around....OK, I don't mind this.

Open-folded 6-6 UTG on first hand, and watch 2 shorties go out to big stack's K-K, down to 8. After another shortie busts out, I bust the last shortie (who had only 40K in chips) with A-J against his A-2, and we're down to 6 players - it's all profit at this time.

I only get involved in one or 2 hands here, except to steal the blinds, but at 4-handed I double up again after shoving K-Q into A-7. Ace on flop hits opponent, but I have flush draw...and hit it on the turn. We lose one more player, and down to 3 players. Both players to my left have over 500K in chips, and I'm the shorty at about 250K.

I lose a couple of pots, basically get by blinds abused, and go card dead, and get down to 100K or so in chips. Finally, on the button with 4-3, and it's just hit 1 am, so I think "F-this", and shove my chips in the middle (15K/30K blinds). 1st big stack shoves all-in, insta-call by other big stack (WTF?), and the cards reveal:

Me - 3-4
SB - K-K
BB - A-A (chipleader)

Flop is a beautiful 3-4-8, followed by a 3 on the turn, and a blank on the river, and not only do I get a miracle triple-up here, but we get down to HU.

Older guy who I had played with before has a million more chips than I, but we battle it out for the next 25-30 minutes. Finally, after we get back to about where we started (and blinds about to go to 50K/100K), he offers me a chop deal that is worth about $20-25 more than I should have gotten. I wasn't about to refuse it, and we happily end the tourney there. $425 was my take, and after tipping my dealer $23, a cool $367 profit was mine.

I am thinking a visit back to Four Aces on the 20th or 21st is a given.