Day 4: Not a Bad Tourney +$620

So, I decided to try a change of pace and I entered a live $100-ish donkament.

For those of you used to internet tourneys, these live tourneys are more or less equivalent to $2 180 man tourneys on Poker Stars or Full tilt.

I would say that 1/4 of the field is dead money, 1/4 are more or less ABC weak tight, 1/4 are okay, and the remaining 1/4 are good tourney players.

My primary focus was to keep myself in a position to make the final table.  I was conscious of the chip average and made it a point to stay above it.  Of course, I picked off all the low hanging fruit with the occasional blind steal, but I managed to make it all the way to the final 20 people without being at risk (going all-in against someone that could bust me).

My bread and butter was targeting bullies that were raising preflop and shoving turns no matter what.  I targeted one such bully who i'd seen raise, cbet, and float with Ace rag.  For whatever reason, he was hyper aggressive with Ax and treated A3o as if it were AKs.

Key hand.  Hero BB ($14K chips), Villain ($10K chips) BTN
Blinds 200/400
Hero BB with A9hh

Action folds to Villian, Villain raises 1000 on the BTN, SB fold, Hero calls from BB.

Flop(pot 2200) Kc Ad 7h.  Hero checks, Villain bets 1400, Hero calls.

Turn(pot 5000) 2c.  Hero checks, Villain shoves all-in for 7600, Hero calls.

River:(pot 22000):  8s

Villain shows A6o
Hero wins with A9hh

I felt really good about this hand/showdown because villain had been hyper aggressive all day with A3, A6, A7, etc. etc and the table was letting him run over them.   I knew villain would shove with Ax and figured my 9 kicker was ahead of most of his range.  I knew he'd shove turn no matter what and he didn't disappoint.

Normally I show my donk hand of the day as well, but today I don't have one :).  I played very solid and felt good about all my reads and plays.

I finished 4th in the tourney and lost to an A9 vs KT all-in. I had the A9, villain had KT and spiked a T on the river.  By that point, the blinds were crazy high and me and villain were even in chips.  I win that hand, I probably win the tourney.  But you know how it goes, part of the game.