I had a couple winning sessions this evening. I played in the 55K gtd, slid my way into the money but basically didn't get any chips accumulated once I made it into the money. I also had a decent cash game session at NL50. I bought in at my table for $30 and cashed out at $80. It was up and down at first, I won a nice pot later on with JJ on a 10-6-3 Q board.

The 55GTD started out pretty crazy, I am new to rebuy tournaments and didn't know I should expect a lot of crazy push-ins early on. The avg. bet at my table was 1500 or 3000 pretty much from the get-go. I started my stack by limping in EP with AQ, it went around to a manic player who tends to go all-in with basically any face card,, in this case he pushed in with K10, I called and it held up. I tripled up with a 3way all-in with 10-10, this was definitely lucky but it took me up to more than 10K within the first 45 minutes, I was in the top 100 for most of the early portion of the tournament. I busted a mid-stacked J10 with KJ on a J10Kxx board. I won a critical all-in with JJ > AKo to get up around 35K. Here's another hand from later on when I was shorter stacked that I played absolutely backwards, I probably played it horrendously, but I got some chips :)

POKERSTARS GAME #7892040966: TOURNAMENT #39824832, $10+$1 HOLD'EM NO LIMIT - LEVEL XIII (1000/2000) - 2007/01/12 - 01:24:23 (ET)
Table '39824832 164' 9-max Seat #6 is the button
Seat 1: flatlanman3 (30769 in chips)
Seat 2: Poogi (27806 in chips)
Seat 3: astrodg (27524 in chips)
Seat 4: johnnyblaz13 (43666 in chips)
Seat 5: grandslamsal (148817 in chips)
Seat 6: pittdmb (47936 in chips)
Seat 8: tekiller (18250 in chips)
Seat 9: J. Depp (40076 in chips)
flatlanman3: posts the ante 100
Poogi: posts the ante 100
astrodg: posts the ante 100
johnnyblaz13: posts the ante 100
grandslamsal: posts the ante 100
pittdmb: posts the ante 100
tekiller: posts the ante 100
J. Depp: posts the ante 100
tekiller: posts small blind 1000
J. Depp: posts big blind 2000
*** HOLE CARDS ***
Dealt to astrodg [Ks Kc]
flatlanman3: calls 2000
Poogi: folds
astrodg: calls 2000
johnnyblaz13: folds
grandslamsal: calls 2000
pittdmb: calls 2000
tekiller: folds
J. Depp: checks

A limped pot was extememly rare at this table, I couldn't believe to see the pot go unraised, I was preparing a limp-raise to pick up some extra dead money and most likely pick up the pot preflop..... ehhh so anyways:

*** FLOP *** [Ah Th 6d]
J. Depp: checks
flatlanman3: checks
astrodg: checks
grandslamsal: checks
pittdmb: checks
*** TURN *** [Ah Th 6d] [Td]
J. Depp: bets 4000
flatlanman3: folds
astrodg: calls 4000
grandslamsal: folds
pittdmb: folds
*** RIVER *** [Ah Th 6d Td] [As]
J. Depp: bets 6000
astrodg: calls 6000
*** SHOW DOWN ***
J. Depp: shows [5c 7s] (two pair, Aces and Tens)
astrodg: shows [Ks Kc] (two pair, Aces and Kings)
astrodg collected 31800 from pot
J. Depp said, "lol"
*** SUMMARY ***
Total pot 31800 | Rake 0
Board [Ah Th 6d Td As]
Seat 1: flatlanman3 folded on the Turn
Seat 2: Poogi folded before Flop (didn't bet)
Seat 3: astrodg showed [Ks Kc] and won (31800) with two pair, Aces and Kings
Seat 4: johnnyblaz13 folded before Flop (didn't bet)
Seat 5: grandslamsal folded on the Turn
Seat 6: pittdmb (button) folded on the Turn
Seat 8: tekiller (small blind) folded before Flop
Seat 9: J. Depp (big blind) showed [5c 7s] and lost with two pair, Aces and Tens

So yeah make fun of that as much as you want, I kinda like the way it turned out.

After this hand I never won another decent sized pot. My table was annoying because it was very loose aggressive, there were 3 people with 100K or more on my left and the passive weak players on my right, it was pretty shite position. Blinded away after this for a cash of 106. I didn't rebuy or purchase the add on because I was the table chipleader at the time of the first break.

I'm glad I cashed, it's a good way to start out at pokerstars, but I'm also aware that I didn't make anything happen once I made the money. Different steps need to be taken in order to win or FT tournaments. More experience will give me better perspective.

If your read on the table was that somebody would probably raise, then this is a great situation for you to limp with kings in. Just got unfortunate that an ace flopped, but be glad you were bluffed into twice.

Personally I really don't like anything about how you played that hand. Limping in when you open the pot is one thing, but limping behind another limper only encourage more limping, which is really bad for you. I throw a raise in there pretty much every time. You will probably get action from the limper, and you might even get reraised. Considering the pot went unraised, I might fold on the turn. Most of the time, you will not have the best hand here (NO results-oriented thinking; you can't beat an Ace, and you can't beat a Ten, and you have ZERO information about the guy's hand).

The limper in front of my was the reason I limped, I thought there was no way that some of the more aggressive players behind me would allow so much dead money to float around in the pot.



I have a feeling that at least a couple of the limpers had a decent poket-pair so if I made a small raise preflop someone probably would have come over the top.



Fortunately the avid bluffer at the table took a couple swings at the pot, if anyone else had made those raises I probably would have folded.



Meh, I'll call this tournament a lesson learned, there were probably 4-5 hands I could have played differently that would have made my stack X-times bigger. Oh well.