You Don't Win a Poker Tournament ... You Steal It

I heard this phrase recently, and it seemed appropriate with me working on my Chip Accumulator gear.

For whatever reason, we only had 23 players on Saturday night. This meant that I got to do less running around in the first few levels, and actually play a little poker. My seat draw was rather good, with three ladies sitting on my left. So I did a lot of preflop raising to steal blinds. I also did a bit of 3-betting (reraising). As the blinds went up, I also started to limp on the Button when it folded to me, and then bet at any Flop that was checked to me, which usually won the pot.

I also ran a little good with some "splash around" hands. I limped with 42o in late position. I called a Flop bet (Q 8 4) and hit the second 4 on the Turn. I bet out on the Turn and River to win a good sized pot. Later, I limped with 53d in late position. Girl on Button (Kerry Z) raised. BB and I called. I flopped bottom two pair to crack her JJ, and knocked her out of the tournament.

By the 1st break, I had run my 5k starting stack into 23200. I didn't even take the 3k AddOn, and saved myself $10.

After the break there was only 16 players left, so I took my foot off the gas. All I needed to do was keep my stack around 25k, and coast to the Final Table. It started off well. But one of the ladies (Special K) got very shortstacked. It was hard to try any steal attempts without a decent hand, so I started to blind off. Plus I lost a small chunk when someone hit two pair on the River against my top pair.

My big stack was slowly approaching a small stack when I doubled up in a Blind vs Blind hand. I hit two pair on the Turn, and shoved All-In on the River to make it look like a missed draw. He (R R Dave) thought about for a while, and reluctantly called with a low pair.

When the 2nd break came, we had just reached the Final Table. My stack was up to 29500. However, it took forever to get from 11 players down to the Final 9. I think we played five handed for almost an hour. So the average stack at the start of the Final Table was only 9 Big Blinds at the 1k / 2k level, and it didn't improving much during the rest of the tournament.

Since I was one of the chip leaders (2nd, I think), I just sat back, and was patient. I did manage to knock out two players, including the Bubble with a three outer on the River, A9h vs ATd.

When we got to three handed, the chip stacks very fairly even. But the average stack was still around 10 Big Blinds, so the chip lead got passed around. A young lady, who I sat next to at the first table, had a little rush of cards. She took a small chunk off me with JJ vs my TT, and then she eliminated the 3rd place player (Doug Poker) with AT vs KJ All-In preflop.

This gave her a very large chip stack going into heads-up, roughly 145k to 30k in the 2k/4k level. We exchanged a few blinds back and forth, but I never got the double up that I needed. Finally, in the 25/5k level, I pushed for 32k with T9o, and she called with A2o. I lost the coin flip, and finished in 2nd place for $200.