33rd

I cashed today in 33rd. As with any tournament, I'm unhappy because I didn't win, but I feel I played extremely well in the event. My bust out hand was the biggest marginal spot I had been in the whole tournament. But before we get to that...

As I got to my table at the start of the day I realized the chip leader who had been battling The Grinder all day yesterday is directly to my left, and I know that means I'm going to have to catch some hands or be short stacked in very short order. On the 2nd hand of the tournament I find QQ and open utg+1. Some player in middle position moves all in, and I call for almost my full stack. He has 55 and another player donates to my stack. What a lucky guy I am!

After the first table broke, seat 2 was filled by Vanessa Rousso, who is legitimately hot. She's also a very good player, which means I'm not all that thrilled with her being moved to my right. Seat 1 is Nam Lee, and Lee, Rousso, and the CL Chang were battling in pots the whole day. I'd say almost every pot the table played at least one of those 3 were involved.

Luckily the cards were coming to me at the right time, and although I doubled to over 80k early, after playing some pots I was down to around 50k when I pick up good old AA. Nam opened UTG, and Vanessa called, I moved all in, and an old guy who was playing very tight overcalled (Awesome!). Nam looked distressed, but folded, as did Vanessa. The old guy had AQ (Even more awesome), and Lehr congratulated me again asking how I managed to get paid off with every big pair I was dealt. I was up over 100k into the top 10 in chips. I ended lvl 2 with $120,000 and way ahead of where I wanted to be, so I was very happy.

The rest of the day was completely uneventful. I took a few pots down and floated from the 100k mark until we hit the bubble. Costing 11k per round, I quickly fell to 80k by the time we made it into the money.

We redrew for seats, and I was in heaven. Lear got moved directly to my right, again. The chip leader was to his right, so I knew I was going to have tons of resteal opportunities. To my left were 5 old guys (aka really tight players), and Chang.

A little over a round after we redrew I picked up 88 in the big blind. Chang opened in middle position for 12k, I said to myself that I was going to play back at him with any pair any ace and any 2 face, as Chang opened at least 3 pots per round. When I looked down to 88 I knew I had to reraise. If I had simply raised an amount of 20-25k, then I'd be committed to call a push from him anyway, so I want to take the play away from him, so pushing or folding was the only play. Pushing with 20bb in this spot was marginal, but I knew with the payout structure the way it was, that I'd take the more aggressive play every chance I could. I moved in for just under 80k and he called pretty quickly with JJ. He flopped a set of jacks to seal my fate and eliminate me in 33rd.

I plan on relaxing the rest of the night, watching a movie, and possibly playing a bit of poker

later