Final Tournament - Can You Say AQ?

When last we left, I had overcome a short starting stack to outlast 25 out of 35 runners to reach the quarterly finals of a freeroll company I stumbled upon in my area when I couldn't make the riverchasers game in time one night. Given that I used to hang with the owner, Chuck, during my first two years at one of Penn State's feeder campuses and he runs a really nice game, I'll give his company some pimpage.

Anyway, we started with 3 full tables with the entire prize pool going to 1st place. As opposed to the semis when I started with a miniscule 1000 chips (20 BB), I was pleasantly surprised that this was to be a deep stack event with double the normal stacks (100 BB). Play during the first level was unsurprisingly cautious. IIRC, there was only one player eliminated in the first 20-30 minutes.

I saw a couple of cheap flops with modest starting cards, but needed to fold on the flop not even having a decent draw and multi-player interest. Eventually, I found JJ UTG and decided to limp, expecting a raise from around back. The button and both blinds had been very active and would frequently raise with anything if no one showed any strength. My read on the table was spot on as the button raised 3.5x BB after 2 limpers. The SB folded, but the BB called, so now do I smooth call a well disguised big pair and play the hand out of position hoping that no A, K, or Q hits the flop? When I phrase it that way, hell no. And, no, I didn't play it that way on Saturday either. I reraised the 350 bet to 1100 and both players folded. BB was obviously just trying to hit a flop with a big stack, and the button showed AQ. Wow, a freeroller actually mucked AQ pre-flop to a limp reraise. Nice pot for me.

A little later, it's my turn to pick up AQ, this time in the SB (100/200). The hand picks up 2 limpers from EP, and I decide to just call. I don't want to go nuts with this hand out of position. I'm still just trying to grow my stack gradually. Well, the BB raises to 3x BB and both other limpers bail, but I decide I want to see a flop. A 2 5 rainbow. I try to find out where I am in the hand, and bet out 1200 which is called. Turn brings another A and we both check. When a deuce comes on the river, I figure we are going to chop, both with aces full, but I dutifully bet 1000 anyway. BB calls and says I have a boat. Well, duh, so do I. I flip the AQ and he mucks angrily. What? It seems that he raised with 55, caught a set on the flop and sandbagged the turned boat, only to see it get counterfeited when the board paired the second time.

Cards go dead for quite a while, we lose a table, and are now playing with 2 tables of 6 and blinds are 300/600. I think I have somewhere between 6 and 7K left and get AQo UTG+1. No more limping at this point, so I raise to 1800 and lose everyone but the SB. Now, even though I have only played with this company 3 times at this point, the SB has been at my table during each one of them. He loves his ace-anything, he loves his connectors, and he usually bets out on the flop if he is interested or check-calls with a strong draw. So when he checks the A-rag-rag flop, I shove. I have already committed 25% of my stack to this hand, and pretty much got the flop I wanted. Either he has what I think he has, a semi-strong A, or he missed the flop completely, or he played the hand differently than I have seen him play and he has AK or 2 pair and is slow playing. Ding ding ding. He picked up AK in the SB and gave me a bunch of rope. GG me. Well played, Sal.

All in all, I think I played pretty well and could have competed for the prize if I hadn't run AQ into AK when I really needed to accumulate some chips. I knew I needed to start to get aggressive, especially when were playing 6 handed, so I'm not unhappy with my play there. I think almost anyone would have gone broke in that spot.

Anyway, most likely I won't be hitting that game all that often. They just can't compete with the bigger prizes that RPT offers at their TOC's. But if another timing issue comes up, and I don't want to postpone my night out, I won't hesitate to go back for a night. The structures and nightly prizes are similar, and just one top 14 finish in the quarter gets you into the semis.

Oh, and then I went home and played 2 SNGs on full tilt and finished OOTM in both. In one, I played über tight, and in the other, uncharacteristically aggro. Just to see if there was a difference. Not for me.