Full Tilt $10,000 Rush Guarantee (1,500 chips)
I thought this tournament went pretty well except for a couple of mistakes on my part, one of which ended up with me being very lucky and the other of which knocked me out short of the money.
It took about twenty-five hands—some of which were far better starters—but fifteen minutes into the game I doubled up with [9h qh]. There were four to the flop on a min-raise of 80 and I was third to act. I made top pair with the [qc td 4c] flop and bet 100 after action checked to me. Only the big blind stayed in. He checked when the turn [4s] made a pair on the board, then raised to 360 after my bet of 100. I called and the [7c] came on the turn. He went all-in for 2,240 on a pot of 1,260. I only had 1,045 more but thought I had him with the queens. Mutant Jack: [ad jd]. No good and I took the pot of 3,350, picking up another 660 on the next hand with [ts js].
Three minutes and eleven hands later I have [ah kc] in the hijack. I raise one limper from 50 to 125. The cutoff re-raises to 410 and everyone ahead of me folds. I call. The flop is an unforgiving [jc 5s 2s]; I check and so does the cutoff. An [ad] shows up for me on the turn and I check it, getting a check behind. [5d] on the river. Aces over fives with king kicker for me. It’s possible he has a five but that 410 pre-flop was awfully strong for a five. I go all-in—I’ve got him covered by more than 1,700—and he calls: [tc jh]. I’m up to 5,130.
Seven minutes, twenty hands: [ks kh]. Blinds are still only 30/60. I raise to 180 from UTG+3. Hijack is the only caller. The flop is [7d jh 3h] and I bet 200, getting a call. [td] on the turn, 300 bet, 300 call. [tc] makes a pair on the board on the river but there’s no flush. I check and the cutoff goes all-in for 1,640. I’ve got it covered by 3,260 so I call and he reveals a busted flush draw that could have posed problems: [6h ah]. I’m just under 8K, which briefly puts me in the top 30 stacks.
Sixteen minutes go by—fifty hands, if you’re counting—and I’ve got [jh jc] in the cutoff at 50/100. I’ve been slowly losing chips without any real hands and I’m down to about 6,000. UTG+1 raises to 300, getting a call from the hijack. I raise to 600. Big blind raises all-in to 1,500. UTG+1 folds but hijack (with 8,600 to start) and I both call. We check the [5h 7h 2s] flop, but when hijack checks the [kc] on the turn I raise 1,000 into the 4,850 pot. He goes all in for 7,176 and I fold. One of my smarter moves from the night. The big blind has [5x 5x], Hijack has [kd jd] and wins. Two hands later I manage to win almost the entire amount back with [ad 5d].
One of the hands I’m not particularly proud of had me on the button with [9c 9d] at 80/160. There was a limp by UTG, and a raise to 480 from the hijack, then I re-raised to 800 with 4,100 behind. Everyone folded around to the hijack who went in for 9,127. I thought he had an AK or something of the sort but when I called he showed [ac ah]. Not good. At least, not good until the [qh 3h 8s] flop. I ended up with more than 10K in the last hand before the break. Not enough to propel me back into the top 30 by that time.
Aces were the end of me ten minutes after the break when my [qc qd] just weren’t as lucky as the nines were and I lost an all-in against [ah as].
Lost my first buyin on hand number three with [kc jh] after double-pairing on the turn. A pair of queens in sprang out of the hole with trips. A top-paired queen with a low kicker ([9d qd]) lost out to [qc ah] and cost me my second. The Mutant Jack ([ad jd]) fell to a common [ks ah] for my third. A fourth was gone with [as 8s] paired on the flop beat by [th 8h] drawing a flush on the turn. I kept at it, though and managed to recover most of a buyin with a [ac kd], then one-and-a-half with [kc kh], and almost two with [jh jc]. After 153 hands (thirty-six minutes) I was -7.39BB/100 hands, still down a little more than half a buyin. 265th place out of 431; 15 minutes.
Full Tilt Multi-Rush On Demand (1,500 chips)
Like a Sit-N-Go in that it needs a certain number of players to get started but then a number of other people can join for a specified amount of time and you can multi-enter. I joined a 36-player game and the number of players quickly ballooned to over 400. I won a couple of decent-sized pots a few minutes into the game but lost a couple large chunks with good [ax] hands, then had a Broadway draw on the flop with [tc ac] get beat by [kd as] that made three of a kind on the river.
I thought I’d try to make back the half-buyin I lost above. Got [js jh] on the first hand in the big blind. The button limped and I raised to 2.4BB, getting a call. The flop was [7c th 4c] and I tried to end it with a pot-sized raise (5.2BB). Button called. A [5d] was out on the turn, not too worrisome. I checked and the button did, too. The [ah] on the river was a scare card but I tried to make it look like it wasn’t with a value bet of 4.2BB into a pot of 15.6BB. Button folded and I had a profit of 7BB.
On my eighth hand I picked up [ac ah] in hijack and raised to 2.8BB when action folded to me. Nobody played but on the very next hand I got [ac ad] on the button. UTG limped in and hijack raised to 4.2BB. I re-raised to 15.6BB in a classic steal move. I was delighted with the small blind going nearly all-in with a four-bet of 26.8BB and a five-bet to 38BB from UTG. HIjack folded but I went all-in for 48.4BB. The small blind called, which put him all-in (33BB); UTG had 8.6BB after the call. I was up against [ah kd] (small blind) and [jc js] (UTG). The board was loaded for full houses and flushes—[3c 3s ts td qs]—but nobody connected and my aces made a profit of 77.8BB, at which point I felt I’d quit while I was ahead. 538.75BB/100 hands.
Full Tilt Multi-Rush On Demand (1,500 chips)
Whittled down to 1,045 chips after six minutes. Picked up [kc as] and raise to 125 at 25/50 from UTG+3 with the small blind calling Flop’s [3s ts 7c]. SB bets half the pot: 150. I raise to 300, he goes all-in for 3,680 and I call. He’s got an open-ended straight draw with [8c 9c] and gets his [6h] on the turn.
I make a second entry and go up instead of down at first. There’s a glitch with [ac qc] but [ad ah] on the next hand fixes it. Then I lose 1K on [qh qs] and make it back two hands later on [9s ts]. Why can’t I just win? [ac 8c] knocks me down 1,100 and [ah tc] pumps me up 1,500. My last hand for the second entry is [as kh], which is beaten by [8s ts] making trips on the flop and a full house on the turn.
435 players. 28 minutes of play; 92 hands. Finishes in 142nd and 86th places.
[ad js] is not a good hand against quad [tx]. 22 minutes, 29 hands, -52BB/100 hands.