Thursday Update: Bubble Boy

I played two $4/180 tournies today, was poised to go deep in the first one but ran into a bad beat in the first hour in the process of building my stack. I was actually a short stack in the second at the time i busted out. I refocused on the this tourny and went deep; finishing 10th.

This is my final hand.

PokerStars No-Limit Hold'em Tourney, Big Blind is t800 (5 handed) Hand History Converter Tool from FlopTurnRiver.com (Format: 2+2 Forums)

UTG (t43133)
Hero (t23832)
Button (t31389)
SB (t46168)
BB (t13735)

Preflop: Hero is MP with Ah, 9h.
UTG raises to t1600, Hero raises to t23757, 3 folds, UTG calls t22157.

Flop: (t47739) Ts, Qs, 7h (2 players)

Turn: (t47739) Jc (2 players)

River: (t47739) Th (2 players)

Final Pot: t47739
Results below:
UTG has Kh Qc (two pair, queens and tens).
Hero has Ah 9h (one pair, tens).
Outcome: UTG wins t47739.

Analysis:
why i made the play:
We are on the FT bubble villian had become really lag, applying pressure pre-flop and post-flop to take down pots. I felt i was ahead of his range. The table had gone into bunker mode; I expected that i'd only get called by KK/AA, maybe QQ behind. Villian would call a reraise.

Was the play correct;
I'm still unsure about this. It was correct in that my hand was ahead of his range, but i'm not sure if it was correct given the tournament situation. I committed 30bb AI pf with A9s. Another option, now that i think about it some more, was to make it 5-6k. I really don't want to see a flop here and would have to shut down if called... which is not appealing.

What about villian's call;
donkey!... lol. Nah j/k, it may seem like a horrible call. But when he made it i immediately saw the possible logic. If he actually thought about it, then more power to him and he's someone to be aware of. If not he made a donkey call that might turn out to be correct and got lucky. same result but big difference between a losing and winning player.

Given my push villian could reasonably rule out QQ+, the hands that have him crushed. Worst case scenario is AK. if he's aware he probably wouldve noticed that i'm playing a solid game, so he knows i would probably not shove AQ here. Against my remaining range he's basically flipping.

His stack is double my own. Given this and the above thought process, he couldve realized that if he called and won he would be in position to run the final table. But if he called and lost he would be an average stack, which is still 25xbb.

what would you do?

Best Finish & Bad Beat

Today I came 3rd in a $4 180 on Stars for a profit of $81.28. How is this a bad beat you ask? Well with 11 persons left i was chip leader with 54K+ chips. Blinds were about to raise to 500/1000 with 200ante (not sure about the ante) when suddenly my internet DISCONNECTED!!!!!I tried everything... rebooted my pc and the modem...NADA! Went around to my sister's house... not home.sigh.

I don't have a home telephone right now and the wait was too long to call the cable company from my cell. So i just found out tonight at work that I finished 3rd on sharkscope.com. Apparently there was some type of area outtage due to a broken fibre optic cable.Don't get me wrong, this was probably my best cash ever in one of these, but i really felt like i was gonna take this one down.

Sharkscope is a really nice tool. I was able to search on the top finishers in this tourny. Interestingly the top two finishes all play higher limits. The winner, some guy called Viphalid, usually plays the $20/180s and the runner up LargeJohn plays $22-$109 stts. I can't remember anything about Viphalid because i had not played with him. But I remember noting that LargeJohn was a weak player, obviously will have to re-evaluate that.I think i'm gonna subcribe since i will be playing more mtts and sngs now. I will try the 200 searchs for a flat fee of 8.99 first, if i exceed 200 searches in one month then i'll sign up for the monthly subcription of 14.99

I have some interesting hh, especially when i became chip leader. I will post them when i get home if my internet is on.I have to say i'm pleased with my results so far. Even though its a small sample Its encouraging.