Here is the hand summary for the mega satellite.
First clash was interesting. I was in the small blind with 7 8 suited There were three callers already, so I decided to see a flop and called. The flop came 5 6 9 - lucky! There was a club flush craw on the board. But, I still checked to see what would happen. The next to act decided to bet a half pot size bet - running everyone else off. :-( I decided that this guy had A 9 or something like that. So, I waited a minute to see how he was going to act. He seemed confident with his hand, so I went all-in. This got his attention. He fidgeted around for a long while, and, I started to get nervous that I had bet too much to get him to call me. I guess that is all it took. He called my all-in. Hand played out and I won.
I played another hour or more before my next significant hand. I was starting to get low on chips. I was in the big blind, when the button raised. Now, this was not new. At this point, the button had raised my blind practically every other hand. I looked down at A J suited; to call would have left me with only half the pot after the call, so I pushed. He called instantly and I thought I was done. He turned over A 6 off-suit with a pleased look on his face. I turned over my hand and he exclaimed "you woke up with a hand". I won the hand and stored the info. :-)
The next hand I played I had J J under the gun. For those who are following this blog, you know that J J has been a very unlucky hand for me. I almost just called. But, I was getting low on chips again, so I decided to do a standard raise. Although, this thought process took longer than normal for me, and, I think it raised some folks antennae. The player to my immediate left was short stacked and went all-in. And, another player (to my right) raised all-in; my worst case scenario. Raising against two players with J J was not something I wanted to do. But, I only had a few chips left, and, the chance to maybe triple up was too tempting, so I called the all-in. The player to my left had QQ (of course) and the player to my right had A K off-suit. No one hit, and the player to my left tripled up. I won the "side pot" which gave me an extra 1k in chips.
A few hands later, a new player came to the table. She immediately went all in (not a lot of chips). The blinds and antes were starting to get really high, and we were down to 40 people. My stack was a bit low as well. I looked down at A K off-suit and decided to call her. Everyone else folded. She had A J, and I won the hand knocking her out.
Then, I got moved to another table. :-(
I basically sat there the whole time with no cards; observing the players. Luckily (maybe), the table got broken and I got moved back to my original table (two seats to the left of the one I had previously).
I had a pair of nines some time after moving back to my original table. I bet and kept getting called by someone on the other end of the table. I put them on A-Face, or maybe a flush draw. He folded on the river. This nearly doubled my up in chips (it would have if he had called my river bet).
I have 9 9 few hands later, again. This time, first player to act had already raised. After playing with this player for most of the tournament, I had a feeling that he had a big pair. That, with the number of players to act behind me - I folded the 9 9. I know ... that was probably not the right move. But, I had a feeling ...
Of course, poker is all about ironies. We were down to two tables now - 14 players. The same player that I had folded the 9s to earlier raised again. This time I was extremely short stacked with maybe two big blinds left. I looked down at A K suited, and pushed. He called. He had 9s ... of course. A king came on the flop ... but so did a flush draw. He hit the flush to knock me out in 14th position.
I lost the race ...
