I played a tournament with 175 other players, $2 buy-in. I survived the early hours pretty easy and knew I could actually win the tournament with a little luck. This luck seemed to overcome me on the next hand, which was pretty deciding for my chipstack:

Flopping a flush is always nice of course. Problem most of the times is to extract some chips from your opponents, certainly when you’re only playing heads-up against the big blind. On the turn I  make a decent bet, because I don’t want another spade to come on the river. But the BB shoves and I have to call this obviously, only a cold deck can beat me here. I don’t believe my eyes when  I see this guys hand, he sure must have thought he could get me off my hand here, because there are just so many hands that will beat him.

I leak some chips afterwards but I was lucky to have  the shortstack of the table getting dealt AT, right on the moment I had AK. After this hand I regain the chiplead:

From that moment on I absolutely tried to win the thing by bullying the other players as chipleader. Pity for me I ran into a flopped set twice and I was the first one to go instead. Here’s my fantastic result (click) and the new ranking in our challenge:

1. Mr. White 7 points

2. Mr. Orange 3 points

3. Mr. Blue 0 points

Sometimes I’m lucky and I can even make a deep run, but I just can’t make it to a final table till this moment. Just to let you know that I’m still participating in this challenge, I saved one of my sweetest suck-outs of the past few weeks, enjoy:

After all players just call preflop and on the flop, I feel like I have to fire a third decent bullet on the turn. After I get reraised I have to call: mainly because I’m committed, but also because I can still be in the lead against a flushdraw! When I see i’m against A8, I realize I’m in big trouble: I’ve only a 4.55% chance to win this hands with only two outs left in the deck. As you can see, sometimes that’s just enough.

Next time I hope to have the same amount of luck, but on a more crucial moment than this. Maybe I might reach a final table then.

Submitted by Mr. Blue.

I can’t show you a lot of hands because I was working during the tournament (some of those people here actually have a job…) so I needed all my attention for just playing. I did save one particular hand because it was crucial in building the stack I took with me to the final table:

We are both relatively deep stacked here and at the moment I raise him on the flop, I know he has a weaker Ace than me. But my opponent is not giving me a hard time getting all the chips in the middle, when he raises all-in on the turn with, indeed, his weak Ace. Always nice to eat another big stack, at that point I was in second place with 136 players left. In the end I finished #5th. The new rankings:

1. Mr. Orange 3 points

2. Mr. White 2 points

3. Mr. Blue 0 points

But I can show you some hands from a tournament I played last week, the $4,40 one with 180 players. I made a deep run in that tourney, but didn’t make it to the final table. I was one of the shortstacks when I finally decided to stop folding some strong medium hands and made this move:

From that moment on, I had a little more breathing space and was able to play some more hands. I was moving up in chips and won some quality pots with some premium hands:

Getting Kings once is already nice, but another time during the same blinds level? Yes, but with a classic slowplay:

I think win the maximum in this hand playing it this way. Unfortunately my tournament ended shortly afterwards, but I’m warming up for those final tables. Till next time.

Submitted by Mr. Orange

I saved three hands from this tournament which were very important in my way towards the final table. During the first hand I’ve got to commit all my chips pre-flop, but with a decent reason: AA.

It quickly becomes clear that our table had to deal with a dealer’s joke here: AA vs KK vs JJ. Luckily my Aces held up and at this point I’m starting to believe that this can be my tourney. Next important hand:

This time I’m AGAINST pocket Aces, but I like this flop with the nut flushdraw and AND the OESD. His pre-flop minraise indicates me that this guy won’t go anywhere so I decide to get all my chips in the middle right away. As you can see when you look at the percentages, I’m already favorite to win this hand at this point. 7 on the river does the trick. My last big hand before reaching the final table:

Those are crucial hands when you want to make a deep run in a tournament. Of course I’m a big dog preflop against those Queens, but my opponent makes a small raise preflop and I flop a set, what can I do?

From that moment on I faced few problems on my road to the final table, but I couldn’t catch any cards there, ending up in 6th place. This results in the following rankings:

1. Mr. White  2 points

2. Mr. Blue 0 points

3. Mr. Orange 0 points

Submitted by Mr. White

That’s because I almost immediately reached the final table in a tournament with 180 players. Let’s show some hands. Blinds were already 100/200 when I took this strange pot with a pair of sixes:

When everybody calls me on the turn, I’m quiete sure I have the best hand but I don’t like the river Ace: somebody could easily have called with Ace high. However, it’s the beginning of a good run, some hands later:

Kings in late position with the blinds already gone up to 125/250, that’s worth a minraise. A shorty feels like going all-in with AJ and my hand holds up; at that moment I’m in tenth place with 23 players left. But then I drain some chips and the next hand I’ve got the feeling I have to move with my short stack:

Some guy with KQ understands that I don’t need much of  a hand there to shove my chips all-in and that’s the end of it: I finish in 14th place but I feel like winning this challenge once again.

Submitted by Mr. White.

Let’s not talk too much about this jokes, let’s go immediately to the hands, first one:

What can I say? I raise in late position with 77 after some rock just limped with his 99, and he first needs to flop a set before he raises me. Of course I also had to flop a set… So I was eliminated but no problem: I played at another table simultaneously and was hoping to make a deep run over there. There the next hand was dealt:

Why not see a cheap ass flop with A2? Because you can flop two pair and the villain next to you flops a better two pair. To make it even worse: let’s both make a full house on the turn. I hope I will have some more luck in the following tournaments, for now I say goodbye.

Submitted by Mr. Blue.