Live Event - Defending My Title

Managed to take down the $40 buy in event at my local card club. The prize for first was $460 this week so over two weeks I have managed to turn $40 into $820 of pure profit. It is amazing what can happen when your big hands hold up for an entire event.

I did pull off a suckout when I was shortstacked. Raise standard 3x bb with QJo from MP. A microstack pushes all in which is less than my raise and another guy pushes and it will cost me 1/2 of my stack to call. Blinds were increasing next hand and my read was that one would have Ax and the other would have a small pocket pair. So I called and they both had AQo! So I call for 2 J's to hit the board and I get one on the flop and the other on the turn to win the hand. Talk about establishing yourself as a loose insane player early. Stole the blinds a couple times to get to the final table.

Got JJ when we were six handed and the wife calls me to tell me she is going to the gym in the morning. So when it is raised and then a super tight player pushes all in I fold because everytime the wife chats with me it is super bad luck! The guy can't believe I folded J's and shows me pocket 9's. Great timing sweetheart! A maniac at the table started busting people with junk but he raised every pot for the next 15 mins. Finally, we get to the final four and a super tight player turns push monkey now that we are in the money. He gets called by maniac and the maniac puts him out 4th. This is the point where I felt that I could really win this because I felt that I was a best player playing. Blinds are now 1,500 / 3,000 and I have 20k when 3 handed play starts. Time to steal blinds just to stay alive and they both tightened up to help me out! Finally the maniac calls my all in bet from the SB when I have KJo vs. his J5s! Nice call out of him and my hand holds up and now I am the big stack at the table. He goes out in the next hand and we are HU. First hand I get A4o and decide to push to keep him guessing and he first asks how much are the prizes for 1st and 2nd. The answer is $460 for 1st or $230 for 2nd. Based on that info I put him on a weak ace but I was very happy to see A3o when he called.

He was left with 4k of chips and that became the new BB! It felt good to win the same tournament two weeks in a row to make me feel like my play can be good sometimes. For a live event I find that mentally it is easier to prepare than when playing online. Now if I could just put that type of concentration to my online game I am sure that my results would improve.