$3r - The Biggest Tournament Ever - Home Game

I think it was Thursday that I played the $3r. I havent been playing this tournament at all recently. I have no idea why because it's one of my favorite tourneys on the internet. I had a great table during the rebuy period and managed to get a stack of 17k at the first break. Now I would be able to play a super tight aggressive game till the antes kicked in and the blinds got bigger. I just wanted to really maintain my stack more than anything else. Depending on my opponents stack size, I didnt really want to get in any big confrontations early.

The first big hand that came after the break, a guy opened for a min-raise to 400 with blinds 100/200. I popped to 1200 with KK, he re-min raised me to 2000 and I just shoved for his last 2k. He flipped QQ and I held. With 23k and blinds 150/300 Ante 25, we come to our next big hand. A player utg who was really bad, limped and it went around to me holding Q4. I check my option and we see a flop of Qs Qc Js. I lead out for 600 into the 1125 pot and utg flat calls. On the turn comes a 5, I lead out for 1200 into the 2325 pot and find myself getting raised to 3000. I really don't know what he has at this point. I kind of thought he might have hit a set of 5s for a boat on the turn. Or really seeing if i have a queen or what. I call the raise and see what hes going to do on the river. It was a 6 of clubs. I think this case was one of those where if I was ahead I was really ahead, and if i wasnt then I'm obv beat. I was planning on calling a bet here on the river, but when I checked he shoved his entire 8500 chip stack into the 8300 chip pot. Once I saw that I knew I had him. He flips over A2 of clubs for no pair no draw. Now we're sitting really nice with 35k at the 150/300 level.

I played 2-3 orbits just sitting back and maintaining my chip stack. Picking up no real big hands in the process. Our next big hand came at the 300/600 level. Starting with UTG and going for the next 4 positions all limped. In the small blind with 53o getting over 10-1, I flick in the 300 chips. We get an awesome K 5 3 flop with 2 clubs. I overbet the pot for 5000 into the 4050 pot. Figuring I'm only going to get played back at with a King. If they have a set of 5's or 3's then so be it. I get a really scary flat call from a guy with 18k. I wasn't paying attention to how he was playing at all. I didn't think the 2d turn helped him at all so I bet pot again which was 14k. This had him covered by 10 chips and he called and flipped over KQ. The river bricks and we now have a monster stack of 54,515. After that hand blinds went up to 400/800 and I had 68 bb's.

We were on the money bubble so I tried to apply some pressure to the rest of the table. What I got was the complete opposite. Almost everyone was using their entire timebanks to stall. I started to get extremely frustrated. To add on to that, people were limping when they started to see what I was doing. By this time it was the 500/1k level, in which you just dont limp! I was just on complete tilt at this point because we were getting maybe 10 hands in a level. It just wasn't fun at all. It was the same guy doing it over and over and over. Here these people are trying to work their way up the pay ladder by $3 each 150 or so entrants. I'm trying to win this thing not make $3.

With blinds at 600/1200, I raised in LP with KJ(new nuts) and got re-shoved by a shorty who had a static stack of 8 bb's. His range could be so big and I was gettin the right price so I called and he flipped KQ. He holds and I'm down to 44k. The same guy limps for 1600 utg now and I have 77 in lp. I raise it up and he re-shoves yet again. I hate calling with small pp's late in tourneys but I did yet again. Plus the fact that he was utg doesnt sit well with me. But to my surprise he flips JT......Sigh we know where this is going. He flops a Ten and we're down to 22k. I steal a little bit and we're up to 32k. Now at 36k, it's folded to the sb who shoves with 8 bb's and I snap call with 99, he flips up 55. Awesome I'm thinking, until the board pairs twice and we chop the pot. With 7 bb's i shoved 33 into 88 and that was that. I think I got like 150 something out of 2700 people. Not where I want to be.

Pokerstars added 2 new tournaments to the Sunday schedule. A $10k heads up tourney which stevesbets won, and a $10 100k guaranteed lottery. I say lottery, cuz thats pretty much what it was. All week stars was running 70 fpp, $1.10 and $2.20 satty's to this thing. Altogether they hit the max of 15,000 people. But hey, I'll give it a shot because most likely these people are pretty bad. The structure was the usual stars one. They gave us 3k in chips but only 10 minute levels. Which means that there was going to be no play after the first couple rounds or so and it would turn into a giant sng.

I doubled up 30 hands in when I turned a straight with 88. The river put a straight on the board with 34567 and I just shoved. The guy had a 3k stack so I took it all. I was up to 6232 after this hand. With blinds 50-100 and still the same 6k stack I limped utg with KK. It folded around to the bb who raised 400. I decided to just flat call in pos. The flop was 89T. Not the best of flops in the world for my hand. He led out for 600 and I just shipped it in. He flipped over AJ for a couple outs and hit his Queen on the rivshow. I doubled up a few hands later with JT when I had an oesd and flush draw. Surprisingly I hit and was up to 8530 in chips. Up to 9k now at the 75/150 level I open to 450 with AK. The bb cold calls and we see a A 8 2 flop with 2 clubs. I lead for 1k into the 1k pot and he re-raises to 2550 leaving behind 1300 or so. I shove and he flips AQ. And hits his Queen on the river. Sigh we didn't need 14k or anything. I went out a lil while later when I had to shove from the button with T3.

In the home game world, Citro's buddy Justin took it down Saturday Night. He must have went on the biggest heater I have ever seen. At one stretch he got 6 pp's in a row and flopped a straight another time within the matter of 25 minutes or so. He played well otherwise and won fairly easily. Nice job man.