Tourney Results Report #2

Today's post is brought to you by the word ... frustration.

I headed out this morning for the TI with the intention to play in both their 11 am and 2 pm tournaments.  There were good turnouts for both with 31 entries in the morning event and 49 in the afternoon.  In the morning I played pretty aggressively during the first three levels when stacks were still pretty deep.  One interesting hand (after I had chipped up a bit) was when from big blind I called a 4x raise from the player in the cutoff with 89 of hearts.  The small blind had also called.  The flop was J9x with no hearts.    I checked, the villain bet about half the pot, the small blind folded and I called.  My intention was to check the turn and ether fold if an A or K fell and the villain bet or check raise if the turn bricked.  Obviously I would have been perfectly happy had villain checked behind on the turn.  The turn did indeed brick, I checked, villain bet about half the pot again, but he didn't look happy about it, so I followed through with my plan and raised enough to put V all in.  V tanked for quite a bit and then finally called.  I was surprised when he rolled over pocket Kings.  Looking back, I don't know that my read was really all that off, I think Villain actually did feel weaker then his hand warranted.  In any case, I overcame that setback and kept chipping up nicely.  Unfortunately, I hit a bad stretch getting to the final table which included aces getting cracked and the loss of several races and ended up out in 6th place with 4 places getting paid.

The afternoon tournament was pretty brutal.  I doubled up early and never looked back.  I really took advantage of my stack size.  After the first six levels I had increased my starting stack by over 7x and was at 9x the starting stack when we got down to the final table.  I was either first or second in chips with close to three times the average chip stack.  Unfortunately, I also was at 8 big blinds at that point in the tournament structure.  I might have been able to fold my way to the money, but I got to that point by playing aggressively, and I wasn't going to stop now.  Once again, races were lost and before I knew it I was down to two and a half blinds.  I shoved the first ace I saw, and unfortunately someone else had a better ace.  After the turn in that hand I actually had 21 outs to chop the pot to go with my meager three that give me the win so literally half the deck keeps me around, but it was not to be.  This time I was out in 9th with 6 places getting paid.

Maybe I need to rethink my strategy for the end game phases of these fast tournaments.