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lhs78

2 PM Mar 4 2012, Planet Hollywood, 9th (25 entries)

With starting stacks of 6K in chips and 25 entries there were 150K chips in play during this tournament. This made my stack of 17K with 14 players left well above the average stack size. I chose to play conservatively at this point, waiting for decent starting hands. Unfortunately none were dealt to me, so I didn't get involved in any pots at all during the next several rounds, except for two.

In one of them it got folded around to me in the small blind holding KQ. I put the big blind all-in and he mucked instantly.

That hand was before there were ten players left. When it got down to the final table I still had 15.5K left in chips, just 500 chips below the average stack size. This gave me a fairly good shot at making it into the money (the top three places got paid).

I drew seat one, so I was in the little blind to start. This was actually a pretty good seat draw for me because it meant I'd only have to post 1000 chips in the small blind to start with, then I'd get to sit back and wait for good cards without having to post any blinds or antes (this tournament evidently had no antes) for an entire round.

And wait I did... For the first several hands none of my holdings were even marginally playable. One player went out during this time, shortly after losing a coin flip holding AK against QQ then having to go all-in with almost no chips left a hand later.

Still holding 14.5K in chips when I was second to act, I looked down to find

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With the blinds at 1K-2K I chose to raise to 8K instead of pushing all-in. Perhaps this was a mistake, but it didn't affect the outcome at all because the button would have put all of his remaining 12K in the middle holding

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either way. I called the additional 4K of course. No tens or other good cards came for me, so my stack was suddenly down to just 2.5K.

In the next hand, with the 2K big blind about to hit me on the next hand after that should I decide to wait for it, I looked down to find

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This seemed better than two random cards, so I put my remaining 2.5K in the middle. Just the two blinds called. A three flopped, but so did a jack. One of the blinds had a jack, so after no more threes or any six fell on the turn or river, I was out in 9th place (actually I would have needed a six only, because one of the blinds had a three with a higher kicker).