Poker: my first sponsored tournament

I have been waiting for what seems an age to take advantage of my Green belt status from my Grading, but at last I get my first shot as a sponsored player for Black Belt Poker :-)

 

At last I am playing in the $300 +$20, $250'000 Guaranteed No Limit Hold' em Sunday tournament... and is not costing me a cent :-)

Due to various reasons, despite getting the tournament ticket early April have only just found an opportunity to play. 

The game started at 7pm with 839 players registered and the top 100 players get paid.

We start with 5000 in chips and 30/15 blinds (blinds go up every 15 mins) am set for a long night (hopefully!!)

Hand 7 I got dealt JJ in the BB and re-raised a late position raised.  He flat called my flop bet on 322 flop, flat called the K on the turn and then checked behind with an 8 on the river and I was happy to see he had AT, just a shame I was so nervous about the K hitting his hand else I could have probably got some more out of him :-)   That settled my nerves a bit and tried to focus on the game...

The end of level 1 saw me with 6911 chips with 5109 being the average and 47th of 821 players remaining, so a nice steady start...  abbreviated to:
L1: 6911/5109   47/821

L2: 7655/5364   71/782

Called raise with 44 against tight player, then stupidly got creative on A93 flop and re-raised him, only to face a 3 bet.   Had gone through something similar with him in the last level so folded (as I did before)  At least I have setup a scenario where I can stack him now!

L3: 5935/5556  126/755

Phew, against my potential nemesis, he raised and I decided to call with AJo... immediately thinking I was a bit silly... but the flop came a kind JT2.  He bet out and called my re-raise then check/re-raised all-in on 2 turn... but I decided he was playing me rather than his cards and sure enough he had AQ and I doubled up!  

L4: 12982/6070    23/691

Raised against blinds from button with 98o   Flopped an up and down str8 draw so when short stacked SB check/raised all-in I was calling.... unfortunately his A5o held up against all my outs :-)

L5: 10250/6648   145/631
L6: 10850/7641    95/549

PLayer seemed to be targeting my blinds so decided to flat call a min-raise with A8o from SB after another player had called.  I bet out on J87 flop and he flat called    I decided to check/re-raise all-in on 6 turn and of course he had JJ !   

L7: 5055/8323  380/504

Bit of aggressive play with no cards saw me slowly build up again.

L8: 10585/9917   158/423

So after 2 hours playing, we are near enough with half the starting players..... hopefully plenty of play left in me yet... but need to calm it all down and get selectively aggressive.  Just got some more caffeine and chocolate, that should mellow me out :-)   Blinds are now 400/200 with ante of 40 as well, so short stacks will likely be getting more aggressive now I guess, so need to pick my spots carefully...

L9: 9785/11652   184/360

Made it into the top half of starting numbers, but not yet ahead of the player who sat out all game (he has 400 chips left!)   My M is 7 so starting to look for good spots to get it all-in

aggressive player raises as I get TT from button... its folded to me and I push all-in and only the raised calls.  He shows AKo so a nervous wait but my TT holds up so I double up and am now the tables chip lead !

L11: 22740/18811    67/223  ( I missed a level change somewhere along the way!)

Aaarghhh, my frequent re-raising friend to my right obligingly raised when I had AKo in the cut off, so I re-raised the pot.  To my dismay, the table chip lead on the button called my re-raise and the others folded.   The pot was around 20'000 and I had 16000 left, so the flop of QT2 (2 diamonds) wasn't too good for me, giving me a middle pin str8 draw and backdoor flush, as well as the possibility that A or K would be good.   The villain had been calling/raising fairly liberally as has mostly been table chip leader since joining the table... so I decided this was a push or check/fold situation.  After a brief pause I pushed... and he sat for a few seconds before calling with his JJ   I didn't improve so was out in 189th place.... at around 10:30pm (not to late a night for me :-) )

It was fun whilst it lasted.  In the main feel I played reasonably well, maybe being too aggressive here and there, but overall the aggression paid off.   In my exit hand, the villain could so easily have missed the flop and been behind, my only regret was not pushing pre-flop to give a harder decision for his Jacks to call (although I’m sure he would have done) and getting my chips in as a coin flip.   It was certainly a great game and have the funding to play at least one more big game this month (if I can find the time) so will be looking out for a suitable opportunity ASAP !