Puffmammy 2010/11 Quarterly Tournament 3

The race for the POY title has entered it’s make-or break period. After D’s win earlier in the week, he had a 33-point lead on me, which was 14% of his total points. There were only five events left in the season, with two of them being a quarterly and the Main Event final, both of which award double points. I haven’t made particularly good showings in them in the past, for some reason, and there was a lot of concern on my part that D would extend his lead past a point where I had any chance to catch up. N was still in the running, as well, only a point behind me after the last game.

The field was larger than we’d had in a while, which meant that even more points were going to be awarded to the top spots. Our table was dominated much of the evening by B, who’s only played with us a few times but who has a good cashing rate. He knocked out K early on and quickly put his doubled stack to work pushing people around. I got a taste of it with [ax 9x]. B was in the hand with myself and his wife No. The flop had [ah], but there were two other hearts, as well. The pot was good-sized on the turn with another [ax] when I called No’s large bet, but B raised all-in and I couldn’t continue. No went all-in and showed the flush, B had just two pair, but the case [ax] came on the river and I would have scooped it all if I’d stayed in (although quad aces would not have been the high hand for the night, there was a [jx]-high straight flush on the other table in the first five minutes.

I won one hand that I shouldn’t have shortly after T, one of the new players from the other table, was moved next to me after a couple of knockouts. I pushed with [8x 8x] on a [tx tx 9x] board and we were all-in before the river. T had me crushed with [qx qx] and I was going to be out relatively early since we were past the re-buy period. But another [8x] came with the river and I sucked a big chunk of his chips away, leaving him to be preyed on by No a bit later.

I pulled down a bunch of chips from B with an [ax 6x] flush that he apparently didn’t think I had. At one point on the final table I was chip leader.

D was seated to my right as we got short-handed. He was getting a little antsy with a short stack and when I had [tx tx] he was all-in with a suited one-gapper. I was safe through the flop and turn and actually thought I’d won the hand at first but a [6x] on the river made a straight for him and he sprang back to life instead of letting me gain on him gracefully.

I doubled up B, as well, and then I was the short stack going into the end game. My last hand was a club short of a flush, with D taking me out in third place. I fell another five points behind, but my usual showing at the quarterlies would have gained him another dozen or more points, so it could have been a lot worse.