Confidence Booster

Technically I am in greater need of an immune system booster but the win I booked this morning helped me feel better. I took off the second day of work this week due to the gunk that has taken up residence in my head and sinuses. I feel that I am starting to turn the corner today and will likely be back at the salt mines tomorrow. I am looking forward to getting back to the office because there is so much to do there.

The baby was fed, dry, and getting sleepy and SteelerSteph was headed to a doctor's appointment. My mom was on standby in case Sawyer got fussy. What to do? How about a 90 seat $3+.30 KO sitngo? Sounds like a good fit. I want to try my hand at some larger field low buy-in games but I rarely have the time to devote in case I go deep. I watch DNasty13 splash around in these things and they look like fun. I think the KO format is a bit of a hedge since you have a chance to get some or all of your buyin back even if you don't make the money. The flip side is that it decreases the final table payouts but that usually is not a problem for me.

Here were my stats for the whole game:

I played pretty tight through the whole tourney and really caught some cards at the end. Early on I doubled up with trip sevens and was never below average again. Down to the final two tables I was steadily in the top 3 and played my big stack pretty well. I would pick my spots and attack the middle and bigger stacks and leave the shorties alone unless I had great cards. On the final table bubble, during hand for hand, I really made some aggressive moves and was able to get some separation as I padded my stack. The final table bubble soon broke and 9 spots paid. One player had T260 and it was pretty sure they were going to pop the money bubble.

Money bubble popped and I set about to play smart poker. I managed 2 big resteals and kept myself in the top 2 chip spots without really risking much of my stack. Overall, the tourney played pretty fast and I was able to pick my spots. Suddenly (or at least it seemed that way) we were down to three with two of us almost even in chips and third place well behind. I had restolen once from williteverend and watched him play relatively loose but decent poker and he was getting out of line now. I knew it would only be a matter of time and I would get his chips. I did and had almost a 5 to 1 chip lead over the "happy to be in second place money because of the real donkey that busted out when he did not need to" guy that was left. I doubled him up once to 68k but made sure I kept the pressure on and soon had him back below 30k to my 240k. I felt a bit like cat playing with a mouse and ultimately got him all in with his K6 against my K10. My hand held up and I was pumped. Not a bad way to dip your toes back in the FT waters.

I collected several KOs along the way (probably 8 total) and had a blast. It is easy when you get good cards and your heavy favorite hands stand up. I think the best manipulation play of the day was when I got 99 to get it all in against my AQh on an all heart K high flop. I used the clock, the min-re-raise and all of my best online acting skills. It feels good when all the chips are in and the opponent is drawing dead on the turn.