Cashing in close to "home"

Day two of the Peter Poker tourney saw 41 players still in the race, with me holding my 2nd place in chips, with a stack of 212.000. The chip leader with 230.000 chips was seated at my table and he managed to lose his entire stack within the first 90 minutes. I saw him call, with 89s, an all-in from a player with 55.000 chips, then another all-in call with KQo for 75.000, and a short while later I busted him when we both hit an ace on the flop but my AK outkicked his A8o.

So things started out well enough, I went up to 310.000 witihin the first two hours but then lost a 60k hand when my QQ ran into KK. Still, I kept holding on to a chip stack that was well above average, and was in the money after about 4 hours of playing. A little after that we were down to 12 and I had the chip lead with 500.000 chips, blinds being 5.000/10.000 by then.

At this point, I misplayed one hand (I dare to say the only mistake I made during the tourney). A very loose Dominican player with 300.000 chips minraised from middle position, I called from the BB with 4h5h and the flop came Th3d6s. I thought a had a read on the other guy who seemed to not like the flop at all, so I placed him on two overcards. Adding up the outs and what I thought was a ton of fold equity due to my tight table image, I moved all in and was snap-called by JJ. The overpair held up, and my play cost me a big part of my stack. I guess check-calling or a smaller bet would have been smarter here.

I managed to rebuild my stack a little, made it to the final table of 10. One player was eliminated so I had $2575 secured, with a pay jump of $1000 ahead. The blinds were now 30.000/60.000 and 5.000 antes, meaning the pot was at 135.000 before the cards were dealt. Then it was folded to me on the button, my hand was 55 and I had 9 BB left, so I decided to move all in, against a BB who had 12BB left and who I knew to be a very cautious player. To my surprise, he called me with KJo. None of us improved on the flop and turn, but the river was a J and I was out.

I was not too unhappy though, and I am proud to say that I think I played my best game (except for that one hand I misplayed to the expense of 60% of my stack) and ended up with a nice profit.