Breaking In The PokerStars.net Shirt

Last night was the Monthly stop on the OCPT. I normally wear my FullTilt football jersey, but I thought I would represent with my new PokerStars shirt that I would wear in next weeks WSOP event. We had a semi-light showing of 12 entries. Probably due to moving it to Tuesday to get out of a scheduling conflict, and people having more vacation plans in the summer. This would be my last live tourney before the WSOP. I planned on loosening up my game a bit and experimenting.

I go pretty dead card-wise as usual, but we are 6 handed so I am loosening up as much as possible. I see a flop from the SB with 64s. When the flop comes 542 with one of my suite. I fire out a bet, and lose everyone but Audra. The 3 drops on the turn giving me my straight, but also leaving two flush draws out there. I make another big bet, and Audra reraises all-in. I call, and she has a smaller straight and a flush draw. Flush hits on the river, and I get up to rebuy. A few hands later, I get KK, and Audra pushes in-preflop before me. I call, and she has JJ and gets no help. Up to T400 in chips. I would then triple up on consecutive hands. Once I had 77 and the flop came TT7. Both players went all-in before I could even act. The next hand was JJ, and I got my self all-in prelfop 3-way. I didn't really like this. I was against AJ and K5s. The Jacks held and I had a massive chip lead at the break.

I pick up KK again, and make a 3x preflop raise. Flop comes JTx and it gets checked to me. I say I'm putting you all-in. Drew says "You got it" and tables his JT. Did that guy just muck 2-pair. No. I guess he called. Decent dent in my stack. Then people started to drop. Later, I called Drew's all-in on the flop. The board was KTx, and I had K4. Drew had K8, but I rivered a 4 and eliminated him. I knocked TA out a few hands later when I called his all-in with 77, and his overs did not improve. Jeff would knock out the other two players, and we were heads up for the title.

We started about even in chips. I went into bully mode, and took a nice chip lead. I raised preflop with K6s, and called Jeffs small all-in reraise. He had 83o. He picked up an 8 and was back in Business. We went back and forth for a few more hands. Eventually, I raised preflop with A5o. Jeff came over the top all-in. He had me slightly covered. I did the math, and felt that if I folded, I would have a pretty small chance of winning. If I called and won, it would be mine. I decided to call, and he had ATo. I would not improve, and ended up taking second place for $150.

I seem to play pretty good in the PStars shirt, and think I have made some good adjustments to my tourney game. Hope the shirt continues to bring me luck next week