My Happy Fun Time PokerStars Sunday Two Hundred Grand Guaranteed Cooler

I used a portion of my free Platinum Package Ticket stash (from my 1st place finish in one of last month's World Blogger Championship Of Online Poker preliminary tournaments) to free-roll into yesterday's, "PokerStars Sunday Two Hundred Grand Guaranteed." With total cash prizes of $293,230.00, there were 29,393 players entered to battle for a 1st place payday of, $27,856.86. The top 4,270 finished in the money (pay-outs started at $29.32) and as usual, with a little luck, a few races won, and a couple of miracle sucks outs, making the money would be possible. (Or at least that's what I always tell myself.)

For the first hour of the tournament I employed my usual strategy of playing tight, aggressive poker in hopes of building my stack and staying at or above the average stack size. My goal was to play sound, ABC poker and just ensure that if I shoved it all into the middle I was doing so with the best hand going in. As in most multi-table tournament on Stars, the blinds rise quickly and the antes kick in early. If you haven't doubled up at least once by the end of the first hour you're already looking at an "M" of less than 10 and thus the game turns into an automatic shove or fold contest. The beginning of the second hour of play is usually the time in the tournament where the most players get eliminated, the only other parts of the tournament coming even close to this level of carnage are at the very beginning (when many donkeys try shoving and doubling up too quickly) and when players get near the money bubble.

In the Sunday Two Hundred Grand everyone starts with 3,000 chips and by Level 10, I was sitting on a stack of 9,455. With the blinds at 300/600 and an ante of 50, I was just barely above an "M" of 10 and only in fair shape. I built up my +9,000 chip stack by being lucky enough to win a couple of races holding pocket nines against AK and AQ. However, I still needed to double up at least two more times if I wanted to get near the top of the leader board and have a chance at making the final table. The next hand dealt found me in middle position looking at .

Seat #5 is the button
Seat 1: vitka620412 (8500 in chips)
Seat 2: Lone Rhino (9455 in chips)
Seat 3: DreadPoker (12243 in chips)
Seat 4: coyot3on3 (22680 in chips)
Seat 5: scyraser (20040 in chips) (Seat 5 is the button)
Seat 6: GoldenRook (4210 in chips) (Small Blind)
Seat 7: OryginalG13 (12110 in chips) (Big Blind)
Seat 8: AeroBlah (7590 in chips)
Seat 9: fill_hellmut (6805 in chips) (I love this guy's screen name, LOL!!)

Everyone posted their 50 antes, with GoldenRook and OryginalG13 posting the Small and Big Blinds, respectively.

The action continued as follows:

AeroBlah: folds
fill_hellmut: folds
vitka620412: folds
Lone Rhino: raises 1,140 to 1,710
DreadPoker: folds
coyot3on3: folds
scyraser: folds
GoldenRook: folds
OryginalG13: calls 1,110

The Flop comes, and OryginalG13 checked. With top pair and top kicker, I bet 3,125 into a pot of 3,630, hoping to take it down right there. Yes, the flop was semi-scary considering the coordinated cards that hit, but at least it was rainbow suited, and one of them was a diamond. I put OryginalG13 on any two cards in the deck based upon his earlier reckless play and the fact that he was sitting on the Big Blind. I knew for sure he'd probably call or raise All In with AA - 77, but anything is possible in a tournament of this size and with a buy-in of only $11. (Easy for me to say, I was free-rolling.)

OryginalG13 thought for about 30 seconds and raised 7,225 to 10,350 to put himself All In.

I too thought for about 30 seconds and pondered the odds of him holding JJ, QQ, 99, JQ, J9, or KT. I just didn't think he had it and called off my final 4,570 chips.

I flipped over my and OryginalG13 showed for a set of nines (Of course! Nice play, OryginalG13.). I was in deep trouble and needed some of that luck you have to have to make it deep in one of these things. Come on, suck out!!

The Turn card came and it was the . YES!!!! This is the lucky suck out I need and exactly at the right time!! No wait!! I'm not out in front, he's just hit a Full Boat, nines full of queens. Unreal...

Here comes the River and it's the .

What????

The 9 of fricking Diamonds??

Are you kidding me???

The case 9 has come out of the deck to give Oryginal13 quad nines????

My set of queens - which had now become a Full House is no good AND just to really rub it in, the Poker Gods lay another 9 onto the pile and Oryginal13 goes from a full house to quads. So one way or the other, I'm busted out of this tournament in brutal fashion.

And so it's official:

OryginalG13: shows (four of a kind, Nines)
Lone Rhino: shows (a full house, Queens full of Nines)
OryginalG13 collected 19,560 from pot
Kuni1101 is connected and takes Lone Rhino's still warm seat.
Lone Rhino finishes the tournament in 7,303rd place.

So I clicked the "OK" button, went to the table chat and typed, "gg" and then "gl to everyone". Signed off and went to help my wife make dinner for our kids and the house full of their friends who were there for a sleepover.

Was I shocked, pissed off, or out of my mind over that last hand? Amazingly, no. No, I wasn't. I've seen it happen to too many other players too many times and it's not the first time it has happened to me. I was just glad to be in there fighting and grateful for the opportunity to get that far into the tournament. Could I have played the hand better? Should I have done things differently in that hand? For sure. But I'm comfortable with how I played it and at peace with the results. I'll continue to learn and get better. Not just in how to play the game, but in learning how the game can be exciting and cruel from moment to moment and to not take it to heart.

See you at the next game and good luck to all.