Biggest pots in the first hour I won with Aces. On the first one I maybe should have trapped the guy, but he had limp reraised me so I thought he might be strong enough to take the heat, instead he just folded for my repop. Almost one hour later I got them again and this time I got all the action I needed. Guy raises 200, 1 call, I make it 760. The raiser folds but the other guy calls me with KJ. I gotta tell you, this is a very bad idea. He could have folded even to the first 200 raise and it wouldnt have been a too tight play. But calling a big reraise as well, thats just asking for trouble. And thats what he got when the flop came 9 9 J and he couldnt get away from it, losing almost all his chips.
An hour went untill the next big pot, during that I increased my stack from 10k to 17k by winning small pots, hitting decent pairs on flop or just stealing. I lost all that 7k in a preflop all in pot, my 88 vs JJ. I flopped the 8, but river was nasty. Right after 2 smaller pots against shortstacks: 22 vs A8 I lost and A6 vs K6 I won.
Half an hour later 11k pot race: KQ vs 1010, I won. A couple of hands later I wake up with AA again, make a reraise against an opener who calls. He has less than the pot behind and he pushes on 9 J 6 flop. Showing A10 and no outs, bit of a gift again. Next one I raise with A6 from the middle, get minireraised so I m forced to call. K high flop goes check so I think he could have a hand like JJ, QQ, 1010. Turn comes an ace, I bet and he raises big. I think I was beat and folded.
Half an hour later the biggest pot so far: AA vs AK preflop all in, 42k pot. Its easy to win tournaments when you get Aces all the time and they hold. Bit later I decide to get cute and try a reraise bluff with 104s. Got called but tried another stab at the pot on A J 3 flop. That didnt work either so it was time to give up.
Now its 4 hours into the game, I have a nice stack of 75k and the blinds 400/800. I raise with K8s from the middle, get one call. Flop K J 5, instead of continue betting I decide to trap a little, and besides with this kind of kicker I dont need a huge amount of action, wont hurt to do a bit of pot control. Guy bets 3600, I call. Turn 4 goes check. River is a blank 2. I bet smallish 5200 trying to get a call from a weak hand or invite him to try a desperate bluff. And so he goes off raising to 15 600, which I snap off. He had A10.
Just a bit later I get into 2 small races that I win both: K10 vs 99 and 44 vs AK. Then right on the next hand I raise with 99 and get reraised. I thought I was being so active and showing hands like K8, K10 and 44 that maybe somebody got fed up with me so I pushed all in. It was a bit risky play since the opponent had a healthy stack and as is appears a good hand as well, JJ. I got the 9 on flop and went on to be a big chipleader at this point with 220k. Getting an AK 10 hands later and winning a flip against 99 made me a HUGE chipleader. This was about 5 hours into the game (game lasted 12 hours to finish) so there was well over a 100 players still in.
Ok, time to lose some hands in the next half an hour. Preflop all ins with KQ against shortstacks. First against KJ who got lucky and then vs AQ. Then I lost a bunch of chips with 66 when flop came J J 5 and I didnt quite believe him.
I raised with AJs and got reraised by a guy with 22 BBs, maybe I should have believed him but anyways went on to bust his AK. At this time I was at my worst. I think I played very good at the start and also on the final table but around 4 am I think the tiredness affected my game a bit. I lost my lead and 140k (leaving me 220K) of my chips with 99. I called a raise, flop came 7 8 J, the guy continue bet big and I decided to push it. This was at a 7 handed table and there was only 14 of us left, so maybe it was a good idea to make pressure with my big stack. Bit iffy hand, but anyways he snapped me with AJ and won. Also made a risky bluff in a reraised pot right before this one. I raised 10k with A3s, got reraised to 26k, I called. Flop of J 4 5 he bet 27k I made it 97k and got the pot.
From this on I had to be carefull, blinds had gotten big and I didnt have a huge stack anymore, but we got to the Final Table quickly because few people busted so fast.
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