2nd Place at WNP

Last night again I made the trip to WNP. We had 14 peeps. Some new faces but mostly old ones. It was a lot of fun...the usually laughing etc. I played very few hands early. I made a couple of loose calls early with some drawing hands and fell below starting stack. I made the money back when I hit a set of Queens and got called right to the river. I splashed around in a few pots and was at about 2200 in chips. Then against COJO an interesting hand came up. Blinds were 40/80 and we had played our blind hands very passively. It folded to me and I limped with AD10D into Cojo's BB. He checked and the flop came 1084. I bet about 2/3 of the pot (about 120) and COJO made it 300. I was concerned about 2 pair but for some reason I felt he also hit the 10. I re-raised another 600 more and left myself with about 1100. I was not sure yet what I would do if he pushed but he folded and said he had K10. That was a pretty impressive laydown.

Moving along to the final table, there was 2 limpers into my button and I had KHJH. I raised to 260 total still at the 40/80 level. A new player who had limped in EP, pushed allin for about 600 more. Everyone folded back to me, all I can think of is..crap. I have to call now getting 2/1 but I never like a limp/push into a raise because who knows what he has. Turns out he had 66. The flop came with a J and 2 hearts so he was on a one outer. The turn filled my flush and had him drawing dead.

The rest of the the final table was just a waiting game. I made an error when I raised in the cutoff to 700 with blinds 100/200. I only had KJo but I felt like I should make a move. The bigstack SB went allin and I folded but I realized I only had 2400 left and the blinds were about to be 150/300. 2 hands later in early position with 6 players still left, I look down at my first hole card, AS and then my 2nd hold card comes, AD. I am not sure what it is but it seems like everytime I get AA, I look at one card at a time. I get an one Ace and say to myself, come on 2nd Ace and it comes. I felt like I had 2 choices here: go all-in and hope to get called or limp and hope someone raises. I chose the 2nd option although I hate to slow play AA, I felt I needed to take a chance in this spot. So I limp and it folds to the SB. The SB completes and the BB checks. That is the worst feeling going to see a flop with AA and 2 blind hands. The flop came AJ5 rainbow which if you are slowplaying AA, is not exactly what you want to see. It was so unlikely that anyone had an A as they were in the blinds and did not raise and I had 2 of them. However the SB came out betting 500 into a pot of 900. The BB folded. I thought about it for awhile (my thinking here is I still do not think he has an ace and I am only making money here if he thinks I have nothing because it is probably the only thing he beats) and I said I do not think you have it and I went all-in. He insta-called with J5 and nearly pooped his pants when he saw top set. Another player at the table said he folded J5 so the SB had a 0% chance to win the hand.

That double-up helped to get me to the final 3. Luckily, for about the 5th week in a row at WNP, the 2 big stacks went at it on the bubble and I limped into 3 handed. When 3 handed started I was very short (about 3500 and blinds were 300/600). I pushed ALOT, pretty nearly every hand and managed to build up my stack a bit. Finally the other shortstack pushed all-in and the bigger stack called with JJ. So onto heads up with Jules.

Heads up starts with blinds 400/800 and I have about 4500 against 21500. So again lots of pushing on my part. I pushed allin from the button about 20 times. Finally with the blinds 500/1000 and I had about 6500, the big stack said call. I actually had an ok hand (A10) and she had 55. Off to the races we went. I flop came with 3 spades but one spade gave Jules the straight flush. I had the 10 of spades so I was actually ahead on the flop. The turn gave her a straight to put me WAYYYYY behind. I needed a spade to win that was not the 4 of spades and I did not hit.

It was another night where I felt I made 0 mistakes. The blinds get big and you need to rely on luck. I pushed allin a lot and when I got called I was at least racing (although a few times 55 had me crushed).

My stats at WNP are pretty good lately. I have played there 9 times since August 2nd. I have finished in the money 6 times with 3 firsts and 2 second place finishes. In that time I finished on the bubble once and last week I hit a major suckout to finish out of the money. I still love that game and have such a good comfort level with the blind structure.

A REAL thanksgiving break as I am going away. I will not be playing again until next WNP.


UPDATED PLAYING STATS BELOW:

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