We had our fourth no limit tournament last night. Eight players, $10 buy-in with $5 rebuys available in the first two rounds. No one rebought.
This was probably our best tournament yet, in terms of level of play and the action.
Some highlights:
One poor guy in UTG+1 played the hammer and flopped a boat. Unfortunately someone in SB made his boat with pocket queens when a third Hilton made an appearance on the turn. That was painful to see.
On another hand I raised with AQo and got re-raised over the top by someone who had pocket 7s. I called and caught my ace on the flop, and another on the turn, giving me a full boat to her two pair. That turned out really nicely since she had earlier sucked out a set on the river to my paired ace, ten kicker. In fact, I think she had pocket 7s then as well.
After that I had enough chips to push some blinds around and eventually got in the money.
With pocket 7s in the big blind I mistakenly raised $6 against two callers. Should have figured it was a bad idea after what happened to that girl, but…. The button re-raised $10 and I went all-in to find myself against cowboys. I bounced out in third with 20% of the prize money. Serves me right.
The heads-up play was intense. Lots of back and forth, lots of swapping of position. It lasted for at least two and a half rounds or so, and that meant that they were at it for about two hours (I think 45 minutes is way too long–but last time people complained 30 minutes was too short). There were some tough laydowns, and some crazy all-in action: 1) QJ beating AK when the board made a set on the flop and showed a queen on the river; 2) a postflop AXs flush draw beating top two pair on the river. Same guy held both losing hands. At some point pocket 7s lost again. Ugh.
Finally, with $24 in the pot and the buzzer signaling the end of the $3-$6 blinds, the shorter stack went all-in with AJo. Bigger stack called with K6o. K6 caught a 6 on the flop and won half the prize money. Unbelievable. But after the bad beats and suckouts that happened to K6 earlier, this was his due. The poker gods eventually restore balance and +EV.
Good times.