I played in two $5+.50 multitable tournaments at UB last night. My UB bankroll had dropped pretty low, and I don’t really play there anymore, so I was just trying to finish it off. I didn’t get very far in the first one. I had about an average stack, pretty early on, and got QQ. Flop comes with a Q as the high card, I make a sizable bet, and someone who has me outstacked pushes all in. I call, and he hits his open ended straight draw on the river. My brother was also playing in this tournament, and he lasted a bit longer than I did, but also didn’t make the money.

I played for less than an hour in that tournament (at 8PM) which let me just get right into the next one, which was at 9PM. I was playing pretty tight, and for the most part for the first couple of hours only played premium hands. Not because there were no other hands I would play, but because I was either getting those or absolute junk. I think the only hands I played were JJ-AA, AK and maybe an AQ or AJ mixed in there. No terribly interesting hands, though. Luckily for me, people happened to push all in ahead of me when I got those hands. The guy who did it when I had JJ had a much shorter stack than I did, so I think it was a good call (actually, I raised, to knock everyone else out, which I did.) He had A3s, and no ace, flush, or straight hit, so I took it.

I had an above average stack, but not great, when I got dealt 87o in the small blind. There were four or five limpers in before me, something that hadn’t happened too often, so I called. Flop came 69T, rainbow. As Mike McDermott would say, I flopped the nut straight. I checked, and the big blind bet out. UTG raised all-in, and it folded around to me. I pushed in as well, and the big blind called. Since we were all in, our cards got flipped. Everything happened so fast, that I don’t remember exactly what the big blind had. Probably top pair, good kicker, or maybe two pair. UTG had 99 for a set. Anyway, the board didn’t pair up, I took two people out of the tournament, had a commanding chip lead (at that point I think 50k when second place was 30k) and basically coasted to the final table. I believe my exact words in the UB chat after the hand were “holy crap”. I’ll try to get a hand history from UB so I can figure out exactly what happened.

From there, I don’t know if I played another hand until the final table. I might have stolen the blinds once or twice. My play at the finally table was pretty similar. I just wasn’t getting hands, and when I did, I mostly just picked up the blinds. That was fine with me. I started the final table in second chip position, and was happy to just watch other people drop out without playing a hand. I don’t think I committed any serious amount of chips at all until there were only four remaining. Even then, I didn’t play much. A few blind steals, and played a few high aces that never got past the flop. I didn’t knock out anyone at the final table. Basically, I just watched, until it was heads up.

I think I played heads up pretty well. I started with fewer chips, but not by much, and we went back and forth several times. I finally lost when I had Q9, flopped top pair (queens), and my opponent flopped a set of fours. I checked, he bet, I raised, and he reraised. I probably should have thrown my hand away here, when he reraised a checkraise, but instead, I pushed all in. He obviously called, and I was out in second place. Not bad for my first final table, I think. I turned my $5.50 into $310.40, and my UB bankroll is no longer low. First place paid $480. Tenth place, if I was first out at the final table, would have paid $16.

The tournament finally ended at about 1:15, after over four hours. I guess I’ll be playing in more of them sometime.

Oh yeah, while I was playing in that tournament, I also had a +34BB session at PokerStars 1/2. 70 more hands and I get my deposit bonus. Then I move on to other places for more deposit bonuses.

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