That was great. The 2nd place was great, too, considering I was seriously short stacked through the entire middle stage of the tourney.
While we're on the 3rd break, 15 left, I have 6,000 left and the blinds will be 1000/2000 when we start up. I tell my step-daughetr and friends that I have one, maybe 2 hands left, since I'm UTG when the break ends. I sit down and see I'm actually 2 to the left of the BB and say "wow, I have one extra hand before I have to go kamikaze." Then I'm dealt 77 and say "but why wait?" and double through the BB.
Three hands later, I'm on the button with AJo and 10,000. 2 limpers to the CO who raises to 7,000. I go into the tank. I realize that 1. I'm still desperate, 2. Late in a tourney, everybody's range gets wider, and 3. There's 2 extra BB's of dead money in the pot. I shove, the blinds and limpers fold, and CO (of course) calls, with ATo and I more than double through again.
Next time on the BB, I have 5
3
, its 4 limpers to me and a free play. Flop comes 4
6
7
I shove immediately and get called by 88.
I bust a couple of short stacks in the next orbit, and before the end of the level I've gone from 6,000 to 54,000.
We get to the final table and I bleed off a few chips until it gets 5-handed when with 48,000 and the blinds 3000/6000, UTG goes all-in for 11,000 and I call in the dark getting 4:1. He has A5o, I have 93o and sure enough both the flop and turn bring a 9. Now its bubble time and I start picking on the smaller stac to my right (and the chip leader across from me picks on the medium stack to my left). Eventually we're HU with me having a bit less than 40% of the chips. We trade blinds for a while, then he seems to get timid and soon, I have him outchipped by about 4 or 5 BBs and the following hand comes up.
With stacks about 8-10 BBs, he calls from SBB, I've been pushing him around for a bit, but he's raised often enough to make me think he wants to see a cheap flop, so I push with KTo. As soon as I say "all-in" I look at his eyes and realize I've been trapped. he calls with AT. I turn the K-high straight and my supporters barely have time to yell when the river brings a K to give him Broadway and I'm crippled.
I go all-in blind the next hand, he calls with Q9s and what do I turn up? Yup, AA. I win that one, but I'm out in few hands anyway, but very happy since 2 hours earlier I thought I was going to make $0.