Aggressive Poker is Winning Poker

We had 24 players at my Saturday night tournament.

Very first hand (25/50 Level 1), I get J 4 in the BB. It folds to the blinds, SB calls, and I check. Flop is J 8 4. SB checks. I bet 75. SB check raises to 150. I raise to 450. He calls. Turn is a (J 8 4) 2. He checks, and I bet 600. He calls. River is (J 8 4 2) A. He checks. I think for a moment, and bet 600. He calls, and turns over J 4.

(50/100 Level 2), UTG+1 raises to 450. Cutoff calls. I'm the BB with 9 7. I don't normally call raises with speculative hands in the blinds, but did this time. Flop is J T 8. Sweet! Check. UTG+1 checks. Cutoff bets 600. I call, not wanting to scare off the initial raiser. UTG +1 calls. Turn (J T 8) 8. I bet 1000. UTG+1 folds. Cutoff calls. River (J T 8 8) 3. I bet 1500. Cutoff, who is not big on folding, folds. Drat.

(100/200 Level 4) I'm UTG with 99, and I limp. Five limpers see a flop of Ad 9d 8c. With five players seeing this flop, I don't want to slow play. I bet 600. Folds around to the BB who shoves All-In for 2250. I call, and he flips over A 2. (Yeah, that's how he plays). Turn and River are bricks, and I scoop a nice pot.

After 150/300 Level 5, we've got our first break. I've got 10500 chips. We start with 5k + 3k addon, so I'm in good shape. Last week, I only had 4000 chips at the first break, and won the tourney.

(200/400 Level 6) It folds to my Button, where I've got A J. I raise to my standard 1400. SB moves All-In for 2100 more. BB folds, and I call. He's got A Q. First card out is a Q, and the rest don't help me. Ouch.

(300/600 Level 7) Theo can be a good player when he wants to be. He can also be a loose cannon at times. He just got AA the previous hand, and raises UTG to 1600. One player calls. I'm in the BB with Js 6s, and I've got about 7000. It's been quiet for me since the AJ hand, and I'm starting to get short stacked. I decided to do a squeze play. Theo knows that I'm not gonna make that move without a real hand, and he'll only call with a small range of hands. And, as you know, "Aggressive Poker is Winning Poker."

So I shove All-In for about 7k. Theo insta-shoves All-In, and the other player quickly folds. Crap! He shows AA for the second consective hand. I do flop an open ender (T 9 8), but brick out. I finish the tournament in 13th place.