Monty Memorial Tourney and PokerStars $20+2

Warning: This post could end up being quite long, because I'm going to try my hand at recounting my Stars tourney from last night after I got bumped from the Monty.

Monty Memorial:

First off, I'd just like to say that I was actually a little nervous about playing in this. I'd never played with bloggers before, so the last thing I wanted to do was look like a huge donkey. I think I fared pretty well, getting bumped in 16th out of 77, by a hand I think I dominated preflop. I wish I could remember how it all went down, so if F2aler reads this, let me know if you remember how it happened. Pacific's lightning quick showdowns left me a little confused, and my chat feature shut off about 2 seconds into the next hand. All of the stuff recounted is from memory, so forgive me for shoddy details.

First level:
I started off with an insane rush of cards, catching KK, 99, and AK within a short amount of time, and pushed my stack to about 2100. In the hand I held 99, I think I was in the BB withDoubleAS to my left. There were a few limpers when it got around to the SB, DoubleAS, and he raised 3x the BB. I flat called. I think Mean Gene called as well. The flop came xx9, and DoubleAS bet out 150, I reraised to 450, with Mene Gene folding. DoubleAS thought for a bit, and folded, saying that he'd had 66. There were two suited cards on the board, and if he had a flush draw, I wanted to make him pay.

A little while later, Mean Gene flopped 4 of a kind 7's, and I think he played it pretty damn well, getting much of DankHank's stack. DankHank got his revenge, a short time later, though, by knocking him out.

Ok, I'm going to stop right here and say something. Ahem. This "trying to retell a story without hand histories" blows. And sucks. With the tornado of cards, it was tough to remember any sort of coherent tournament history, but I'll try me damndest.

About the third level, or so, I knocked out vandylb when I held 37o in the BB, and caught a three on the flop, and called him down to the river, putting him on Ax, with no ace on the board. If I could get a hand history on this damn hand, I'd like to know if my read was correct.. Gah! He was very shortstacked, so I wasn't taking a huge risk by calling him.

Not much happened for awhile, but a few levels later, I got seated at the same table asHdouble, andIggy, with Hdouble to my right, and Iggy to my left. Great, just what I needed. I think that about this time, we were down to somewhere around 20 people. Being shortstacked-hey, wasn't everybody?-I woke up in the BB with AK. Hdouble raised from LP with AQ, and I reraised him, putting me all in. He called, and flop came xxxQK. leaving him crippled. At first, I thought I'd won with unimproved AK, and it wasn't until the cards were almost off the table that I noticed he'd hit a queen on the turn, and I a K on the river. Lucky, lucky me. Hdouble was knocked out shortly after that, while I looked away from my computer for a second. When I looked back to my screen, his name was gone, and I have no idea of the circumstances of his departure.

So, I'm at about 4,000 chips with the blinds, well, huge. I wish I could remember the hand that I got knocked out with, but I think I was just so surprised that I was out, my mind went fuzzy. I do know, however, that I was ahead when F2aler and I got it all in preflop. At least, I think I was. Maybe?

16th. So close to the money, yet so damn far. All I can say is that, the blinds went up way too fast, and I would've appreciated 15 minute levels. Can you imagine what it would've been like if our stacks had started at t800 instead of t1500? Good lord, the whole tournament would've lasted less than an hour! Nothing like a 75 person SNG. Also, when the first break came around, Pacific cut 5 minutes into that level, but kept the tournament clock running. That made that level only 5 minutes long! And those were 5 minutes I definitely could've used to build my stack a little above 10x the BB.

All in all, I think I did pretty well and outlasted some people that I consider to be much better players than I am. Hmmmm...or are they? Congratulations, Iggy, on your win, even if you were in cahoots with Pacific. Ha! Actually, you bullied the final table around pretty damn well, and I'm happy that I don't remember tangling with you for the hour we played at the same table. Hey, even if we did tangle, the fact that I don't remember must mean that it wasn't all that significant, right?

Ok, this entry is long enough already, so I'm going to do a seperate write-up for the Stars tourney. I'm sure there's more that I wanted to write about the Monty, but I'll just shut up for now.