Mookie Tourney Run

Well, I played in the Mookie last night and made a nice run to 2nd place. Congrats to Gilain on a great game. He crushed me like a bug when we got to heads up. My cards were just barely good enough to raise, but bad enough to have to throw them away when he pushed on me with his larger stack. It was a pretty quick heads up session and he did gOOt. Well played sir.

Basically, I started off trying to defend my blinds against Jules, who loves to smack me around. It didn’t work out so good and I was the short stack at our table after not too long. I then had to severely tighten up and hope for some hands. I ended up flopping a set of 5s and doubling up through Kat. I gave some chips to Xanthius, who refused to fold, EVER, if he hit any piece of the flop. I actually gave him a bunch of chips later too when I had a good starting hand and couldn’t get him to fold, even with a scary board.

Just before the first break, I was moved to a new table. I had 2355 in chips, but there were some big stacks, including smokkee with 7530. Once I got moved, the hands came and came fast. In the 3rd hand I was there, I got big slick and knocked out kegeratorman who was short stacked with pocket 4s. With 4255 in chips now, everyone folded to me in the big blind to get me up to 4330.

On the next hand, I had pocket 4s in the SB and called smokkee’s min raise. Mrs. Mookie was also in the hand, but when the board came 9 A 10, and everyone checked the flop, I put out a bet on the turn and took the pot of 900. Now up to 4930, I get AQ on the button and pop it to 900 to go. Smokkee thinks and bumps it to 1800. I decided I needed to push and pray and smokkee called with AJ. Niether of us improved and I doubled up to 9935. That made 4 hands in a row and set me on fire.

Two noteworthy hands after that, that I remember. Once was a raise from Hoyazo and his call of my push at the final table. He had A3o (?) vs. my pocket 10’s. Yeah, all the money went in pre-flop and yeah, he hit his A to take the chip lead. A while later, not to be outdone though, with my stack now at 8806, I had AJc in the BB and had been card dead for a while and too passive. It folded around to Hoyazo in the SB and he bumped it 4xBB. Thinking this is a typical Hoyazo steal play, and finally getting a somewhat playable hand, I pushed on his. He called the 6000 reraise and had me dominated with AQo. That is until the flop came K J 4…and the river brought another J. That hand got be back to second in chips to Miami Don but I was able to luck myself into the heads up battle with Gilain a while later. It was nice to play with Hoyazo at the final table, instead of my starting table like it has been lately. He is tough to put on a hand. Great game by all and congrats to Hoyazo, Miami Don, Mrs. Mookie, Darval, Xantius, Kipper, and the host for making the final table a fun time. Unfortunately, Mookie will go another day without a haircut, but he played it well to the end. Go check out his live blogging of the event..

Special shout out to Surf was railing me like it was his job. Much appreciated my man. Same to Carmen, who, along with Don, I will be meeting up with in less than 2 weeks now! wOOt!