Live Tourney, Cash Game

Played in a live tourney on Sunday and finished 3rd out of 17 for a whopping $100 ($40 buyin)... The funny thing was, I never had a single poket pair the entire tournament... hard to believe? Well its true. I've never gone an entire 3 hour tournament without getting a pair. So needless to say, it was tough to take it down. I pushed and pushed whereever possible but still couldn't make it happen. Almost folded my way into second before the guy rivered to stay alive. Oh well, that's poker. I made one great call with my tourney life on the line that I was pretty proud of:

blinds were 50/100 with 7 players at our table. Started with 1500 and i am sitting with about 1800 at the time.

I was UTG+1 holding AQo and raise it to 300. I had a pretty good read on the table so far and felt good about my move here and would have been happy with just a steal of the blinds. Folds around to the small blind who calls. Perfect.

Flop comes A-9-2 rainbow. He checks, I bet out 300, he raises to 600... I tank for a minute and make the call. I was ready to take this guy on.

The turn comes up blank. He goes all in! Yikes, he's got me covered (he just doubled with Kings on the previous hand). So it's another 900 or so to call. I really tank and replay the hand in my head. I love to chat it up with inexperienced players and see if I can crack them verbally. So I ask him "you must have A-K?"... his reply "something like that"... well that was great for me.. I think for about another minute... a set? nope, no chance. I call! He shows: A-J. I felt pretty good about call. It really felt great to make the right decision.

Good times. From then, on I just limped and stole like a mad man and made it to the final three where I finally pushed with A-7 with about 5BB and got insta called by 8-8 and I couldn't catch up. GG me.

Stopped by a cash game at the club last night and they were play mixed .5/1.00 NL. I sit down for a whole 30 minutes and did what I like to call my Hit'N'Go for a whopping $20 profit. I wasn't even planning on playing. I missed out in a $50 buyin 11 person NL so I wanted to see how it turned out. Then I got roped into this mixed cash game which my buddy fronted for me. I actually did pretty well in omaha, but i am still trying to figure out preflop hand strenghts and the odds I need to call an all in of about $20 with another $15 dead already with a hand like 3-3-7h-5h. Lots of work to do there. Needless to say I folded and would have flopped the nuts...

Another omaha hand I held A-A-5-6 and raised preflop on the button. The flop came out with K-K-K!! with 4 players I folded when one guy bluffed an another called... The caller was slow playing his King of course. $60 pot. nice.

Canucks vs. Minny tonight on PPV. Should be a snoozer trapfest.