SNG Challenge - Slow Start

So tonight I started the SNG Challenge and things were not going my way. In the first tournament I got into a blind war with the chip leader on the final table bubble. When my flush didn't hit IGH in 10th. That was all I could play while little Guin was sleeping.

Later in the evening figure I will give it a shot and put up some early pressure. The donk in me was fighting to be let loose and this resulted in a finish of 30th when I raise 5x bb against an aggro player. K high flop and I drop the hoy only to be called not just by K better kicker but K better kicker which is also 2nd pair!

Third event.... this one was the one that put me on tilt... call a min raise (lots of that in these tournaments) and flop comes down giving me nut flush draw. I push and buddy calls with 2nd pair! Of course that holds and I finish in 45th! How many points do I get for that?!

4th event... 44th place 'enuff said! Grumble.... go tell the wife that I suck and she laughs at me and heads to bed.

On the girlie thing I am chatting with Pres Lee and mention that in the next one I want to finish higher than the 40's or last 10 mins at least. I find if I reset the bar low then it is easier to get off of tilt.

Had a beautiful hand that gave me the chiplead which I had for most of the tournament. Get KQo in MP2 and come in for my standard raise (rounded to the nearest 36 - so instead of 120 which would be 3x bb it was a 136 raise) and get one caller and then the BB min raises me. Call and other guy calls. Flop is AJ10d and I have Kd. So nut straight with nut flush draw. I can't put either on two d's since all face cards except for the Q is accounted for. The min raiser bets out 60 into an approx. 600 pot. The guy was annoying and I figured he had AA that he couldn't laydown so I pushed. It surprised me when both called. Min raiser has KK (okay what a donk!) while the other guy at least has J10 and is drawing to a full house. My hand holds up and they both go home.... 40th and 39th.... my first goal is met and I have a bunch of chips to play with.

So I get to the final table and get over the darn bubble and then start to have some fun. We are 5 handed and I have lost 2 hands to the same idiot calling station that has been able to stick around far too long... So he comes in with a min raise and I reraise him so he will be all in if he calls because I hold the holy grail of starting hands.....

As you can imagine there are some that wouldn't make the reraise play like that but lets see how it turned out:

Took the lead on the flop and that increased a bit of hope for the villian but the Hammer is GOOT! Back in the chip lead and ready for more soul crushing. This move really puts the table on edge because they have no clue what you are holding now.

On the next hand that I have a picture of is where I get min raised (no respect for the min raise - NONE) and flop an OESD so I lead out and end up all in with villian holding Q8o. If they were willing to get all in at that point you figure they could have pushed preflop and I would have folded.

So now I hit and they go home in 4th. In the end (this post is too long and I need to get to bed!) I took down 2nd place. So not bad overall but a few big suckouts for me to do that well. Thanks to all those who spent time cheering for my donk moves. Presdavelee liked watching me push a guy all in on a 10 high board (he reraised me preflop and I called)... somehow he called my raise with KK and I proceeded to turn my 103s into two pair on the turn to send the guy home.

How about my 33 holding up vs. 1010 heads up? The guy did get lucky a little later on when he thought his A4o was good against my AQs. Rivered a K so my kicker didn't count and that would have left him crippled. Oh well win some and lose more!