Things went pretty good in the beginning, as I picked up a couple of small pocket pairs early on and both turned into sets on the flop, so I quickly pad my starting stack. A few raises and calls that turn into nothing see me whittle away about 800 chips, so I'm sitting on just over 2k.
Then a couple of strange things happened; twice I got my opponents all in on the turn, twice I was behind and on both occasions I sucked out.. Now, anyone who's read many of the posts on this blog will know that I am a conspiracy theorist and maintain that it is (virtually) impossible for a shorter stacked player to get all-in against a bigger stack and have their hand hold up. Well, that stayed true for a little while, at least when I got mega lucky in these two hands.
I call a min-raise from the BB with pocket 3's and we go to the flop 4-handed. The flop comes down 2c-6d-3s and, being first to act, I check. There's a check behind me and one small bet. This is called from the button, so now I decide to spice things up and raise it to 4xbet ($160). There are two folds, and a call from the BB.
The Jc hits the turn and the BB checks and I bet about 3/4 of the pot (as there's now a flush draw out there) and he immediately moves all-in for $660 more. I have him covered, and making the call would still leave me with 20 big blinds, so I make the call. He flips over 4c-5c for a flopped straight and a turned flush draw. I'm drawing pretty thin and need either the case 3 or the board to pair. Amazingly (for me, anyway) the 2d hits the river and I've sucked out by making a Full-House.
It's the kind of nasty bad-beat that I am usually on the receiving end of, so I thank my lucky stars and rub my hands 'cos now I'm big chip leader with over 3.5k in chips.
A few hands later I pick up pocket 5's in the SB. It's folded round to the button who pushes his last $550 into the middle. I tank for several seconds then decided to isolate by pushing all-in and getting the BB out of the way so I can go heads up.
He turns over Kh-Qh, and the flop hits him immediately - Qd-Th-4c. Oh well, it was a race that I could afford to lose, but amazingly the 2c hits the turn followed by the miracle (2-outer) of the 5c on the river. I'd made my set and sucked out again, big time. Now I'm thinking I am blessed and this tourney is mine.
I play it pretty safe for a while and don't get involved with big hands. The guy 3 seats to my left had knocked a couple of players out and was sitting on over 7k, so I folded any time he was involved.
We eventually get down to 3-handed and the short-stack ($800) pushes when I have Kh-5h, and I decide he's just stealing the blinds and make the call. As it turned out I had his Kc-3c dominated and actually hit my 5 on the flop to get me to heads up about $1k behind the leader.
We joust back and forward for an eternity, and at one stage I had him out-chipped $11k - $3k, but hit a bad run of pocket Q's against his K-T, and he hit 2-pair, then my pocket J's against his Q-T and he spiked his Q.
I've got him covered by a couple of thousand chips when I we get into a raising war and all the chips end up in the middle. My A-9 versus his pocket 6's. I immediately pair up on the 9c-Ks-Qd flop and am almost counting my winnings, when the Tc its the turn and the first thought was that there was going to be a J on the river for a chop.
No, it was worse, he spiked his 2-outer, 6h on the river and I'm now crippled.
I throw my money in over the next 2-3 hands and he folds twice and calls once. I get lucky and pair up with Q-5 against his K-9 and now have enough that another double-through would put me in the lead.
He limps from the SB and I check with 8c-5d. The flop is beautiful - Jc-5h-5s and I immediately check. I decide I'm slow playing this to the max in order to get as many of his chips in as possible. He's been playing aggressive when I check and mostly I've been either folding or re-raising.
He bets out $600 and I wait a few seconds before flat calling. The flop brings the 7h, so now there's a possible flush draw, so I lead out this time. and he just calls.
The river is the 6h and I am fearing the worst, but you can't be afraid of the flush all the time so I push the rest of my chips in hoping he had a J and would call. He did call, and turned over 8d-9c for a runner-runner straight.
What is a guy supposed to do. If I'd pushed on the flop he would have folded and I'd have wasted the opportunity to try and take the chip lead, but by letting the pot get to the river he's sucked out big time.
This hand alone kind-of proves my theory. We'd been heads up for about 20 minutes and the lead was flip-flopping. This was literally the first hand we'd played fully (without being all-in pre-flop) down to the river, and the big stack sucked out on the short-stack to end the game and (as far as Ultimate are concerned) get us buying into another table.
There has to be an exception to every rule, so I suppose him sucking out with the 6 on the river earlier when I had him covered was the exception - although, he was ahead pre-flop that time.
Oh well, at least it's a cash and I can re-invest the winnings and put myself through it all again!
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