2nd place? Not too shabby. I'm not one to gloat, but I'm about to anyhow--right now, at this point in time, things are running well. That's all the gloat you'll get.

It looks like the key for me is to bitch about one aspect of tournament poker that I've been sucking at recently, and it turns a 180. I bitch about running bad, and I start consistently moneying, and even final tabling. I bitch about not having a big score, and it's immediately followed up by my biggest tournament cash to date.

If you'll excuse me for one second, I have to do this.

Damn it! I want a first fucking place finish! Is that too much to ask for? No? Sweet.

I'm not one to post up long tourney reports because, well, I suck at it. Other people can do it better. I will, however, detail a few key hands.

Level VI: 200/400 My stack is sitting at a like above T5000 and I'm dealt AA in the BB. The button and the SB go all-in before me, both with less than me. That's easy poker right there. folks. I jam to cut out even more people in my rightful pot, the button turns over AKh, the SB turns over...KJo? Wow.

I was lucky to dodge a third heart after a two heart flop, and after that hand I was sitting in 2nd place with T13000. So that's how you build a big stack, huh? So easy.

From that point I breezed pretty easily into the money, and to the final table with a 6th or 7th place chipstack. True to my final table luck lately, the seat redraw put me two seats to the right of the chipleader. He had a stack at least 3x that of anyone else at the table, and happily raked pot after pot by sucking out on at least 4 people in a row when we were down to two tables.

10:00pm--I pinged Drizz on the girly IM device, so that he could railbird me, and he proved to be a handy good luck charm.

With the chipleader still running over the table, I was in push-with-any-two-and-pray mode. Drizz agreed. The very next hand on the button with 23c just wasn't enough to push with. Drizz called me a pussy.

The very next hand I decided to show the railbird just how much of a pussy I was not--by pushing with 10-5o. I really didn't have much of a choice. It was folded to me, I had the lowest, most pitiful stack on the table, and making a stand with 10 high was my only move. I knew I'd be called by the chipleader regardless of what he held. I was hoping that he'd show 9 high, but instead he flipped up A9o.

Shit.

The chatbox looked something like this, right before the flop was dealt:

gg
gg
gg
gg
nh
Me: Awwwww *&#@ me.

The flop looked something like this:

x-x-9

The turn gave me a little glimmer of hope, even if it still left me far behind.

5

Drizz, in the Yahoo! IM did a little something like this:
T!
T
T
T
T

And wouldn't you know it, the river came out a lovely, beautiful Bo Derek of clubs. Honestly, it could've been a different suit, I don't know. I was so juiced that my computer almost shot across the room, I jumped up that quickly.

The very next hand I was dealt QQ, and when a shortstack went all-in before me, I was this close to hitting the fold button, with a misclick. I would've been livid, but I was still in my own head enough to be able to take my hand off the mouse and wait for a second before pushing.

He turned over 88, I think, and I was sitting in 2nd place with T35,000.

With a healthy chipstack, and a horseshoe planted so deep in my ass that my saliva tasted metallic, Drizz bid me adieu. Something about going to bed or some bullshit like that, but for reasons you'll soon see, it's better that you left, man.

Down to four players, the chipleader disconnected. Over and over and over again. He had 2x the chips of anybody else, so the other 3 of us had to sit there and wait the required 240 seconds for him to reconnect. He'd always come back before his time was up, but almost immediately disconnect again. I was so frustrated and tired at this time, that I emailed support to see what could be done about it.

Nothing, apparently. I didn't get the reply from support until this morning, but even so, they said that, in order to be fair, they do allow extra time for the player to reconnect. Yes, I understand that part, but when it's done repeatedly, and when eliminating 2 more players takes just as long as it did to eliminate the previous 176, it's a problem.

It was at least an hour and a half of final table hoopla before we got down to heads-up. My nemesis, the man I sucked out repeatedly to get to this spot(man, those hands were pretty) held a slight chiplead.

Hand o' the tournament:
Hero (t99312)
BB (t170688)

Preflop: Hero is Button with Kd, 6d.

Hero raises to t16000, BB calls t8000.
Flop: (t24400) Qd, 8c, 5d (2 players)
BB checks, Hero bets t24000, BB calls t24000.
Turn: (t72400) 9c (2 players)
BB checks, Hero bets t58912 (All-In), BB calls t58912.
River: (t190224) Ad (2 players, 1 all-in)
Final Pot: t190224

He had KJo.

I don't understand what he's thinking here. Wait, I think I've got it. It's the only thing that makes sense.

When he started the final table with a big chiplead, he was, by far, the most aggressive person I've played against in a long time, no offense to any bloggers. He was more aggressive than GROB. His line of action was that, if he was going to raise, he was raising enough to put anyone else at the table all-in. 10x-12x the BB was normal.

But when got down to heads-up, he turned super passive. This was all after his disconnects, so it almost makes me think that it was a different person playing these hands heads up. I can't imagine why someone that played so maniacally aggressive at a full table would turn into such a pansy against only one other person. The only explanation I can offer up is that he called a friend to play these final hands for him.

I bumped my chiplead after this hand up to 4-1, but everything went to shit from there. I was card dead in the hands he jammed with, and when I finally got hands, he'd fold pre-flop. Ah, such is heads-up poker at it's worst.

At one point, I thought that I might win the damn thing with the hammer, but when I bet out on a 7 high board, he folded like a cheap tent. I would've ridden that hand to my demise had he reraised me all-in. Joanne was ready to take a screenshot if he chose to be stupid enough to go up against an unbeatable hand. Not to be, though.

We flip-flopped back and forth for a few more minutes before I succumbed to his slow-played aces when I flopped top pair, no kicker. To tell the truth, I just wanted the tournament to be over. After 5 hours of tourney play, 2 damn hours, and one friggin minute of that being at the final table, I was exhausted.

And all this time I thought the whole point behind these smaller MTT's was that they required less time committment. Oof. I got lucky a few times, sure, but I feel I played well overall, even though I asked "Do you think he's got the king?" more than a few times to people that were watching. He always had a king.

So, thank you to Drizz and Joanne for railbirding, and thank you to PokerStars for giving me another 2nd place finish.

Hey, in the event that the champion can't fulfill his duties, at least I know I'm first in line to step up in his place.