It’s my dad’s birthday today, so no poker during the day…but a little night session isn’t too bad even…so I fire up PokerStars and jump into a 180SnG…jab jab, grabble, grabble…break one….avg stack…suckout count: 0/0…basically only junk hands…next hour is interesting…Kings…against the big stack…he shows AK…the cowboys hold up…I’m comfortable way over the avg…next hand AKo…smaller stack (5k to my 13k) pushes from the cutoff…

…observation #1: the BB is sitting out…

…observation #2: I’m on the button…he could push with many hands…I’m the only player in his way…

So I call and he flips A5o….big slick holds up…and I’m sitting pretty in the chiplead with 19k…after that I go on a garbage hand-card-deadness streak, but I stay calm and fold, fold, fold, fold…some more folding before I hold Kings again…I make a sneaky “half-steal-looking” preflop raise (5.5x BB)…BB loves to call with sixes…my cowboys hold again and I’m back in second chip position….card deadness here I come again…nothing much to report for the next x minutes as we’re approaching the bubble. Then a heart-crushing suckout hits…but not me…another big stack pushes from the cutoff…BB is more than happy to insta-call with Aces…cutoff shows AKo…doominated…flop KJJ…turn…10…river K…ouch! Shortly after that the bubble bursts and we’re ITM.

I’m still card dead and when I finally look down at a semi-playable hand, 44 in MP, I’m already facing a raise and a re-raise…I throw them into the virtual muck…see the player behind me re-reraise…and I’m happy…until they get the money in the middle…AK, A10 and K9 are their hands and the flop comes down Q94…oooooh….turn and river are blank…and the worst hand takes the pot to triple up…that was the key hand…if I move in there…and win the hand…I’m sitting in the top 3 in chips with 13 players left…oh well…what can you do? Call all-in to a raise, re-raise and re-reraise preflop with fours? Not really…

The final table bubble burst after some big-stacks clinch in a preflop pushfest…and I’m happy to sit down at the first final table in a while…last in chips though…

After three orbits of blind stealing and folding I look down at the first “good” hand in a while and decide to push it in…KdQd…is not match to some random hand though and I bust out in 9th place…ooh well, final table..from the bottom…

I’m happy though, I played my A-game like I always did in the last few weeks, but with one difference: my hands, especially the really clear ones (70-75%+) held up…that’s all that is to it…

“Stats”:

1. Flips played: 1, won 1

2. Suckouts from me: 0

3. Suckouts against me: 0

4. Mood: happy 🙂