7/1/06 $2,000 No limit

Unfortunately Mr. Mike Odeh found himself at my opening table, and we were avoiding each other as much as possible. I left the table with about 3,500 in chips, sat at another table for a round, then was moved again. At my new table, I could immediately tell most of the players were playing tight, and decided to start playing ultra aggressive. The message was loud and clear – if you want to play a pot with me, you are going to be playing for your tournament life, as I had the table covered after picking up QQ and moving in on an early position raiser who called with his 99 and was sent packing. I now had 7k in chips or so and the re-raises were in full effect. A pot came up where there were three limpers, the button made it 400 (blinds at 5/100), and I re-raised to 1,200 with A,9. Everyone folded, and he thinks for a short while and calls. The flop came AQT and I put him in for his last 600 and he reluctantly calls after saying “that wasn’t really the flop I was looking for”. At this point I was doing everything imaginable to look weak, as I wanted a call from his obvious crap hand, however to my shock he turns over AJ and won the pot when no help came. Pretty dumb play on his part if you ask me, but to each his own. A few rounds later UTG raises to 600 (blinds at 100/200) and 2^nd position calls. I look down at 77, and decide I’d had enough of this guy’s raises and make it 2,000. Folds to the button who immediately goes all-in for 4,000. UTG folds, as expected, but the 2^nd position caller immediately goes all-in as well, unexpectedly. At this point it’s 2k more to me, and I’m getting approximately 4.75:1 on my money. I had 13k starting the hand and decided I wanted to gamble to try to flop a set to obtain a monster chip lead over the table. If I lost, no biggie, I’d still be the chip leader with 9k. I call, button shows KK and 2^nd position obviously flips over the rockets. No help and luckily I get a 15 minute break to regather my thoughts after the hand. I came back and within a round that same UTG guy raises my big blind for the thousandth time after it folded to him in the cutoff. I look down at K8s and put him in for just under 3k, and unfortunately he woke up with AK and insta-called. No help, and now the fish is all of the sudden not looking too good. I have 6k and needed to change up the game plan a little bit. After catching a crap load of cold cards, I went to the dinner break with 5,500 and in critical shape. I came back and tried to pick my spots carefully, going all-in was the only move at this point. 2^nd position made it 1,500 and I immediately shove with JJ two spots after him for 5,500 and he folds. Nice take. A few rounds later that same guy limps in 2^nd position and I move with A6o because I’d never seen him limp with big hands all day and sure enough he folded. Then a round or two later the UTG guy I referred to earlier made it 1,500 and I moved with JJ in forth position for 6k and he called with AKs. First card in the door was a K and no help, fish knocked out. Afterwards, Mike, moon and I had a very long conversation and I think the correct play was to just fold the J,J in that spot. I was pretty sure there was no chance of UTG folding, and putting your tournament life at risk is never a wise thing to do, especially in a coin flip type of situation. The only argument against this is the possibility of him having T,T or 9,9, in which case I believe he would have called as well, which would have left me in good shape to double up back to healthy condition. Anyway, long story short, the thing I learned from this tournament was the importance of being first in the pot when you are a short stack. Better to hope nobody wakes up with a hand behind you, rather than enter a pot, knowing that someone has already shown strength.