I wrote that just before 6:00... just got back now.
First, bdawg is out. I haven't seen him since he busted, and I think he's probably regretting how he played his final hand. A mid position player made a standard raise to 1800 (300/600 blinds) and bdawg pushed in from the BB for over 10k with AQ. The guy thought forever and finally called with AK and it held up. He had 20some thousand, so it ws about half of his stack to call.
Meanwhile, my tourney was interesting. I decided to splash around a lot in the beginning (25-25 blinds to start), and doubled myself up with a bunch of small pots in no time. I had an above average stack for a long time until two interesting hands came up. In one of them, a good player raised from LP and I called from the BB with 77. You know how much I "love" 77. The flop came down 955, and I checked (thinking I had the best hand). He surprised me with a check behind me. The turn was a 4, and put 3 diamonds on the board. One of my 7s was a diamond, btw. I decided to fire out a nice sized be here and he went into the tank. After thinking for a while, he pushed in. I was pretty sure he had high cards, like AJ or AT with a diamond, bu then I talked myself out of it and really thought he had TT with a diamond for some reason. Maybe 88 with a diamond. I couldn't figure out why he checked the flop with eiher of those hands though, but I knew if I called and he did have one of those hands, I'd be in really bad shape. I had him outchipped, but decided to fold anyway. He told me later he had AJ with the Ad. Eh.... I folded the best hand, but he had a LOT of outs.
Not much later, an EP donkey limped in (I saw this guy LIMP-RERAISE all in with AQo, ATs, and I think 44 or something equally insane - and he kept winning, even when he was getting in against AK with his AT (he made a flush), etc. I saw AKs and wanted to isolate (and hopefully set him up to reraise all in on me), so I made a healthy reraise. Well, the BB pushed in. Donk thinks for a minute and CALLS. Dammit. I put the BB on a pair, but not AA or KK and the donl could have anything, but I was hoping I had him dominated. I decided to call. The BB had 88 and the donk had JTo (????). The flop brought a Jack... and an 8 of course.... and I didn't get the runner runner straight I called for. This put a huge dent in my stack, and all of a siddne I was short.
I hung on forever, picking up a couple of pots here and there, but with the blinds and antes, my stack was headed south. After losing yet another coinflip, the dealer started pushing my stack to the other player, and I said "Hold up. Count that." The table all though he had me covered too, but I said "Settle down. I've got him." I had 275 chips left
After posting my 75 chip ante the next hand, I went all in with KQ (the best hand I had seen in ages) and actualy doubled up (and then some) against A3. Then my A8 held up against 22, and before I knew it, I was over 4000 chips again. When I was down to 200 (1/2 of a B), there were 28 players left and only 20 made the money.
I ended up bubbling, but not in the 21 spot. I finished 11th (one spot off the final table and a money increase). All in all, I can't complain. $485 gross on a $300 buy in. It's nothing compared to the mess from earlier today, but it felt good to play well in a tourney. Tomorrow is a $500...
I'm starving, so that's all for now.