Live Blog -- Party 40k Guaranteed Tournament

I tried this once before and really enjoyed doing it, so here goes:

Party 40k guaranteed tournament.
Total players: 2188
First prize: $9190

10:20pm: First hand of the tourney, I am dealt KK. This never happens with me! Better yet, some guy ends up putting me allin after 4 back-and-forth raises and reraises, and he flips QQ. Flop is no help to either player, and I double up on hand #1. Boy I love when that happens!

10:34pm: I haven't played a hand since the first one where I doubled up. Haven't even had the chance to bully around with my big stack. Hoping this run will change soon.

10:39pm: I raise to 3x with AQs in early position. 5 callers (!), and I have to fold when I don't hit the flop at all and someone bets and another player calls.

10:51pm: Haven't seen a single hand to even take to a flop in the past 12 minutes. This is so far the wrong tournament to pick to live blog, but hopefully it will improve. Right now I am still at 5600 chips with an average stack of just under 4000, with 1688 players remaining out of the 2188 who started.

11:00pm: Still seen only 2 flops out of 28 hands dealt. 5450 chips as the top of the hour passes.

11:09pm: I steal raise in the BB with J-10o, and get called despite my 4x bet by the SB, the only other caller in the hand. Flop brings a Q and a K, so when the SB moves in for the rest of his short stack, I feel compelled to call with my largeish stack. He has top pair with a 9 kicker, and it holds up as my straight fails to hit, despite me pairing my Jacks on the turn. This hand costs me about a third of my stack. I'm pissed.

11:10pm: I raise in 8th position with KQs, get just one caller with a smallish stack. The flop brings two of my suit, I get in cheap, and then the turn brings the Ace of my suit, giving me the nut flush. I move in and manage to get two callers, one of whom is just an idiot with top pair medium kicker, but the other one has two pairs and rivers a miracle boat when the board pairs on the end. I'm down to 2342 chips now, against an average stack of 5539. I'm looking for the quick double up soon if at all possible, or I risk fading from relevance quickly in this tournament.

11:15pm: I raise to 4x with 55 in middle position. One guy in late position calls me. Flop comes 446. I like this flop as there are only two cards my opponent could have (other than a pocket pair) which would fit at all with this flop. I decide to raise, instead of the obvious push since half of my remaining chips are already in this pot. This apparently was enough to convince my opponent that he had the best hand, as he quickly pushed, and I even more quickly called, and he flipped AQs. My pocket pair held up, and I'm back up to 4984 chips. That was just the double-up I was looking for.

11:20pm: The first break is here. I enter the break with 4784 chips (thank you Big Blind in the last hand of the round!), versus an average stack of 6186 chips. 1057 of the original 2188 entrants remain in the tournament after one hour of play. I've had a serious roller coaster ride so far, with a couple of ups and downs, and at one really bad beat. Here's hoping for another quick doubleup near the beginning of Round 2. Some early pocket Aces would be nice too.

11:28pm: I raise to 6x from the cutoff with just one limper in front of me, holding 77. After a nervous moment inside my head, everyone folds to me, putting my stack back over 5000 at 5234, with an average stack of close to 6600.

11:32pm: I'm in 50th place out of 247 remaining in the pokerstars $5 turbo tournament. Top 135 players get paid, so I'm hoping to stick around until that point. I have moneyed in probably 4 out of my last 5 of these, so I figure I have a decent shot of making the cash from here.

11:40pm: AQs holds up against two callers and I win a 2500 chip pot when the board comes Queen high against my opponent's A-10o.

11:41pm: Very next hand, I steal the blinds with just two high cards. Now up to 7782 chips. Average stack is still ahead of me at just over 8500.

11:43pm: I raise it 3.5x from middle position with A7s preflop when it is checked around to me. A few of the remaining players hesitate, but all fold. Now 8382 chips, just under the average holding.

11:44pm: At the first break in my pokerstars $5 turbo tournament, there are just 174 out of 1453 original entrants remaining, and I am in 11th place overall with 27,895 chips. I doubled up hugely on the last hand before the break when my pocket Kings held up over my opponent's pocket 7s that he insisted on moving allin with despite my preflop raise to indicate strength (or the hammer). Incidentally, the flop on that hand was 772, the best hammer flop there is (I suppose arguably 722 is even more hammery, but still). So I am just 39 places out of the money in that turbo tournament, which given the structure of the pokerstars turbo $5 tourney, should take no more than 10 minutes or so into Round 2 to reach. Hopefully I'll still be there to get my $2 profit on the $5 investment.

11:47pm: Lost around 2000 chips when my second pair on a flop of 289 is bested by my opponent's top pair, with both of us checking it through to the end after all the betting was done on the flop. Back down to 6582 chips.

11:55pm: Well I've made the cash in the 5th out of my last 6 of these $5 turbo tournaments on pokerstars. With 132 players remaining, I am in 12th place with just over 37,000 chips. Meanwhile I am down to 595 players remaining in the Party 40k guaranteed tourney, with an average stack size of slightly more than 11,000. I'm needing another big win pretty soon, as my 6500 stack is looking smaller and smaller every hand.

11:56: Dealt KK in the Party tournament in the BB. Guy in the cutoff position raises big, so I reraise and he calls. Flop has an Ace, and I make the bold move of pushing with the rest of my chips, hoping he was playing a pocket pair or a low Ace that he'll fold. Turns out he has AQ, and he calls me and busts me from the tournament in 562nd place. Man I can't STAND losing with pocket Kings like that, but what can you do.

12:00am: Into the final 100 in the pokerstars $5 turbo event, with me in 24th place despite just having my A-10s beat by KJo when not one but TWO Jacks fall on the flop. Effing pokerstars.

12:07am: I'm in 14th out of 79 remaining in the $5 turbo tournament. I just stole the blinds in both my SB and then my BB back to back, with Kxo the best hand I had out of either steal. These turbo events turn into pushfests and blindstealing fests once you're down this low, so I really feel like I have no choice but to be aggressive here.

12:10am: 21st out of 58 remaining in the turbo. I haven't been able to steal any blinds or play any hands, and the blinds are coming around to me now which are going to eat away about 40% of my stack if I don't make some kind of move here.

12:12am: I'm in the BB, and the guy UTG raises just 2x. It is folded around to me, I have A9s, and I decide to push, since what I've seen from the UTG guy is that his smallish raise probably indicates not much. Hee-Haw of course calls, and flips Ad4s. Fortunately, no 4 came on the board. Unfortunately, FOUR FUCKING SPADES come, with the last two hitting runner-runner at the end, and I am unceremoniously booted from the tournament in 52nd place out of 1453 entrants. The payout is $18.17 for my $5 buyin, so I'm happy with my performance. But it's hard to be calm or accepting of a loss like that. Sometimes I feel like if I could just be in charge of overseeing the pokerstars "random number generator" or whatever it is called these days, I might be a millionaire by now from all the fish on this site. But instead, I have to be content with my $13 profit and the knowledge that I made a fool out of yet another fish, who then sugged on me to burn me out of a tournament in which I should be on my way to the final table. These runnerrunnerrunnerrunner flushes and straights have GOT to go. Bitches.