Conno!!y 2nd In Stars 25K Guaranteed!

I started of this tournament playing very tight as i usually do at the start of any MTT, moving up the gears as the blinds increase. At the first break i had an average stack of about 4500 from an original starting stack of 3000 after i won a pot against a short stack when he pushed his 800 stack in i called from the big blind with ak he shows QK my hand holds.

After the break is the time to get busy, stealing blinds from position and calling raises in position, especially when the antes come into play it makes the blinds worth stealing. After doing this for the next hour or so i had grinded my stack up to around 7000 (about the avg) with about 400 players left from an original 1351 with 216 getting paid.

Now the blinds are getting big 300-600, so now its time to try and double up to give me a chance of cashing and having a deep run in this tourney. Then comes this hand, the player in the cut-off makes a standard 3x raise to 1800 i’m on the the bb with AA i decide to flat call and check raise all in on the flop, flop comes Qxx i check he bets 2000 i push he calls me with KQ my aces hold up and i double up to around 15,000.

After a couple of blind steals and a couple of small pots i have a comfortable stack of around 22k with the blinds now at 500-1000 with 250 players left.

Just before we go into the money my stack is back down to 9000 after i ran my QQ into KK for a huge pot at this stage, so after being on a comfortable stack i only just make the money with my 8x bb stack with the blinds now at 600-1200, time to get busy.

Shortly after i manage a double up AQ to AT, then went from strength to strength really battling away until i had my stack up to a healthy 40,000, feeling confident for a deep finish.

Now there’s 80 or so players remaining my stack is 40,000 blinds are now 1500-3000 i have 99 on the button its folded round to me i make it 9000 sb folds bb goes all in, he has me covered, i call he has AJ and i win the race, now up to just over 80,000 and into the top 20 of the remaining field.

Now we’re down to the final 18 players i’m sitting around 13th in chips with a stack of around 180,000 and very large blinds now of 3000-6000, its time to try to build a healthy stack for the final table. I have a short stack directly on my right and we’re in the blinds its folded to him he shoves for 70,000 i have AT i instantly call he has A6, Ten on the flop and he’s gone and my stack increases to 250,000. Then a huge stack of 1.2mil gets moved directly to my left.

12 players left now, getting very close to the FT im around 6th in chips with about 280,000, still the huge stack on my left raising nearly every hand as you would with his stack. Normally at this stage in a tourney i like to get very aggressive as alot of players are trying to hold out for the final table and its a good time to build a stack stealing their blinds, but on this occasion i’m playing very tight coz of the bully to my left. Then im dealt KK on the button, blind now 5000/10,000 i raise it to 30,000 the big stack on my left reraises me to 115,000 i obviously go all in he thinks for a little bit then calls me with K8o lol, perfect spot for me, of course its never that easy tho as he picks up a flush draw on the turn with his 8 of spades but thankfully the rivers a blank and im now up to 2nd in chips with around 600,000.

Final table time. I finished 7th in this same tourney a couple of days earlier after throwing away a good stack and was very dissapointed, so i was determined to do better. It was a very strange final table because of the large stack, still on my left, was getting super lucky in every pot, running like god taking player after player out in a very short space of time and soon enough we were down to just 4 players and ive hardly won a pot still sitting on my 600,000 stack, still 2nd in chips with the chip leader now up to 3million, its seeming like its a race for 2nd. We’re soon down to 3 and i find AQ on sb, button folds i raise to 55,000 blinds now 10k-20k, big stack flat calls flop comes ten high i c-bet 80,000 he puts me all in i fold. My stack now down to 400,000 the other short stack has 250,000 with the chips leader at 3.3million. Then big stack and shortie get it all in with T8 v A8 and has big stack has done throughout so far spiked his Ten on the flop and we’re now heads up.

His 3.7million to my 350,000, as you can see it’s not going to be easy to win but i wasn’t giving up. First hand of heads up i double up when he limps in, i check my big blind with KT flop comes Kxx i bet he puts me in i call he has K9 my kicker plays i double up to 700,000. Very next hand, 2nd hand of h/u is the last hand. I raise from button with 77 to 120,000 he reraises all in i call, he has JJ, and i dont improve. gg.

I finished 2nd from 1351 runners for $4390.