Booya League Event #8

Tonight I played in the final event of the Booya Poker Night In Canada League, and managed to take down 1st place again, out of a single table of 9 players. The game started off fairly uneventfully. Play was fairly tight and conservative, as there were four players present who were still jockeying for 2nd to 5th place overall. Since I was stuck in 7th place, I had nothing to lose, so I guess I could have played more aggressively to take advantage of this, but instead I just played my usual game. There were two other players present whom I didn't recognize and obviously also had nothing to lose, so I didn't want to run into another aggressive player and have to make some difficult decisions.

My stack started a major downswing when I picked up TT UTG. I raised it up to 3.5xBB, and got re-raised behind me. I called, and had to check-fold to a Q-high flop. Things got worse when I got QTo in the CO. It was folded to me, so I raised it to 3xBB and got called by the button. Flop came up T58 with 2 spades. I bet out 2/3 pot, and got raised to 2.5x my bet. I called, and had to check-fold when another spade came on the turn.

After playing a few more pots but not connecting, I became the short-stack by a large margin, and had an M of 8. I managed to steal a decent pot when I picked up KQo on the button with 2 limpers ahead me, I pushed and everyone folded. I got excited when I picked up KK in MP, but dang it!, everyone folded to my 3xBB raise.

Blinds were jumping big time at this point, but I managed to work my stack back up by pushing with 33, AQo, 22, AKo, and AJo. I was now 2nd in chips, with the chip leader directly to my left. The turning point of the game came when I picked up 88 in the SB. Folded to me, I raised to 3xBB and got called by the chip leader in the BB. Flop came out Q53 rainbow, I bet out 4/5 pot, and was min-raised for nearly the rest of my chips. I thought hard, and finally decided to throw in the rest of my chips on the hopes that he may have been floating me with ace-high. He flipped over KQo, and I was ready to say "gg", but the miracle 8 came on the river to double me up and put me in the chip lead.

I continued to build my stack by taking out Note2323 with AQo vs AKo when the flop came out Q-high and he pushed, and by taking out Actyper when he pushed pre-flop with KTs, and I called with 66 and made a set on a K-high flop, and filled up on the river for the overkill.

When it got to heads-up, I was just slightly behind in chips. This turned out to be my first ever major heads-up session, but I felt good going in and was planning to play smarter this time. It went back and forth for a while, with no one catching any monster hands. I got the sense that he was playing a little too tight, as he was folding from the SB as well as not calling my raises a little too often. I tried to take advantage of this by raising slightly more than I normally would, but still mixing in some calls and the rare fold from the SB if my cards were total crap. Because of this, I managed to basically wear down his stack until I had over a 4:1 chip lead. In the final hand, he pushed with bottom pair and an OESD on the turn, I called with second pair, and he wasn't able to complete his draw on the river.

This was a great league for me. I had lots of fun, and gained plenty of good tournament experience. I played 6 of the 8 events, and finished with the best record overall -- four ITM finishes, with 2 firsts and 2 seconds. I made a net profit of $127.80, for an ROI of 194%. All told, I'm very happy with the results, despite finishing 7th overall because of the unfortunate scoring system, but I definately played well enough to take first. Too bad there's no prize for honourable mention :(

I also played in one CPT satellite, and two NHL ticket tourneys on Booya during the past few weeks, but unfortunately didn't finish ITM in any of them. So after everything, I ended up with a net profit of $111 to my bankroll.

Earnings-to-date: $12,096