11th April

I decided to play the Daily Dollar tournament tonight again as I haven't played all that much earlier today. There were roughly 6000 entrants yet again. Unfortunately I got short stacked earlier for some aggressive play, I was trying out a few different ideas but I also wasn't getting the cards. I almost wrote myself off when I had 1.7k when average was about 4.5k. Fortunately I made some pretty nice pushes in position, stole some blinds and made one bluff on a low board heads up and took the pot. I got back to about 4k and action folded around to me with 1010 in small blind, I push the Bigblind all in with 1k more. He shows Q6d and unfortunately he hits runner runner for a flush. I'm back down to 2.8k with the average at around 9.6k now.

I decided I needed to make a move at some stage and found myself shoving with 97h with 3 limpers and a raiser in front of me. So I decided to go all in to eliminate competition and have my hand go heads up. As it seemed, action folded to the raise who then made the call with only 66. This was now a coin flip, I flopped a possible straight with 10 J Q. Turn came 10, I was sweating at this stage, but with any 9,8,K,7 helping me I was happy to see the river hit a 9. I'm now up to 5.3k with average stack at 10.5k and we were down to the last 1600. This might seem quite sudden but really this was after about 2 and half hours play.

As the blinds started to increase and devalue my chip count, I found myself sitting on 4k with QQ, i decided to shove in middle position. No one called and I picked up the blinds which I was more than happy to. I'm back to about 5k with 1243 players left. I get moved to another table and I am in terrible position with the player on my left having me covered 6 times over. I decided at this stage that I would just weasle into the money folding most hands. I folded AQ in early position and when it came to last hand before the money, I had to fold AK, I didn't want to risk it having about 4-5 more people to act after me and facing a raise in front.

As soon as I made the money, the only thing I thought of was going more aggressive hoping to double up as soon as possible. I was in early-middle position on a tight table so I decided to shove all in with A10o. I got called by the BigBlind who turned over 89c. Neither of us hit anything til the river when an Ace came up. I doubled up to 7.5k.

Since the table was tight, I decided the remainder of my hands would be limping in. I had some playable hand though by no means premium but decided to limp in under the gun. action folded around to the blinds and the small blind folded. The board came 599, the big blind checks and I bet small, it seems he already hit the check/fold button so I easily take the pot. I'm up to 9k with average at around 16k.

My new objective is to make top 135 as the payout is worth a considerable amount more than 136-900. I decided to start mixing it up and widening my range because if I played tight I would really just make the next few levels, but if I got more aggressive I could build my stack faster and have a better chance at making top 135. I simply limped in with KJo under the gun and again everyone folds and the big blind calls. He was about the same size stack as me so I knew how he would play after the flop. He was going to shove with any two cards. The flop comes 6 J Q and surely enough the guy shoves all in. I expected this but the Q unnerves me. I figure I have him read and call, he turns over his semi bluff of 10 9o. At this point I knew I was ahead but with 2 more cards to come and him having an open ended straight draw I was probably about 2:1 favourite at best. My cards hold up and I build my stack up to 14k. The average stack is now at 22k.

A short while passes and I am dealt pocket Kings in late position. I would normally play this with a raise and fold if an Ace or dangerous flop came and I was facing strong betting or re-raising. However, with 5 callers, I decided to shove hoping none of the players were limping in with AA. The all in was a clearing bet so I could get rid of players playing connectors or low pocket pairs. I figured I would probably be facing some variations on AK, AQ etc. To my delight, I got called by 99 and I doubled up to 30k. At this point I am actually ahead of average stack which is pretty good seeing as the average chip count is skewed upward by some monsterous chip leaders of about 150k. Average chip stacks are normally the upper 2nd or 3rd of players when it comes down to last thousand or so players.

Sadly this is where my weakness lies, I think I play much better with short stack than deepstack. There is less chance of someone calling an all in by me, I have more to lose, I want to keep my position of being in top 30% of players. It also means that I'll have to hit some cards to call people all in when I have them covered. They have nothing to lose making the bluff either because they have such a small stack. I normally switch to small ball poker but I got transfered to an aggressive table where people had a very wide range of hands and contested blinds quite heavily. As we near the last 500 players, play gets a little trickier as luck becomes less of a factor in pots and skill comes into play. People play position more, they play stack sizes more, they float more, check raise occasionally and bluff an awful lot more. There is rarely a showdown and when there is, it is usually an all in. So eventually I'm sitting on about 25k and I have A10 on the button. Everyone folds and the player to my right does a routine raise of 2.5 times the big blind, I figure this is to steal the blinds and antes with a hand like K9o or even A7o. I decided to just call and not raise as the blinds have still yet to act. The small blind folds and the Big Blind calls. The flop comes down two low cards and an Ace with no real possible flush draw. The big blind checks, the initial raiser bets and I figure he would make the continuation bet whether he hit the flop or not seeing as the Bigblind showed weakness. I decided that he either has an ace with low kicker or hese just c-betting with king high. I push all in and he takes a while to think, pressing time, I figured he had a pocket pair then. He calls and shows AJ. The board was 62A62. I was hoping for a chop. I depart in 399th.

Overall: buy in $1. Return $3.50. Profit $2.50.