$50+5 MTT final table

Spent most of the afternoon playing SNGs, but I managed to catch the start of a $50+5 no limit multi-table tournament. There were 430 entrants for a $21,500 prize pool, first paying $5375.

I took two coinflips on the way to the money - about halfway through I semibluffed with an OESD on the flop, got called by TP2K, but caught my straight and doubled up. With about 150 players remaining I raised from the button with A9h over one limper and the two blinds. Both the BB and the UTG limper called. Flop came Kxx with two hearts. The big blind pushed, the limper called - I was now facing an all-in call for half my stack, getting about 2.5-1 pot odds, with only the nut flush draw. With the all-in and call behind I really expected one of the two was on the flush draw themselves, which meant that I had less than a full twelve outs for the flush + overcard, but I thought there was a very good chance that my ace was live so I was looking at nine outs (six remaining hearts, three remaining aces). I debated for a second, but decided to call - sure enough one opponent was on a jack-high flush draw, the other had middle pair. My ace was live, and in fact my nine was live to beat the middle pair. Better than expected... I caught the flush, and jumped to a little more than 3x average chipstack. From there I played big stack bully, playing tight agressive positional poker, floating my chipstack between 15k and 10k chips.

We went hand for hand at 2:17 with 60 remaining (top 50 pay). I have T11k, average chipstack is ~7200. During hand-for-hand, picked up KK and AA in back to back hands (Comment #1). Managed to jump up to T17k and chiplead at my table with 53 people remaining, average chipstack 8k.

Hand for hand tookabsolutely forever, but it was a nice bubble to exploit. Won a decent pot with JJ to jump to T20k right before the bubble burst (Comment #2). Now we're In The Money with 50 people and average chipstack of T9k

Just hit quad aces to drag a very nice pot (Comment #3). Jumped to T29k, average chipstack is T11k. Down to 38 players and I'm currently fourth in chips.

Just jumped in to the chiplead, dragging a big pot with pocket kings (Comment #4). I've got T38k, 31 players left, average chipstack is T14k. Lost a coinflip a few hands later against a shorty with pocket helmuths against their AJo when they caught a jack on the river, but still maintained the chiplead.

Hit a desparately needed break at 3:15 in to the tournament. I've dropped to fourth in chips with T32k, haven't played a hand in a while. 22 players left, average chipstack is T19k. Chipleader has T66k. Second, third, fourth and fifth in chips are all at my table, so there are few opportunities to bully small stacks.

3:24 in, almost doubled up against another big stack at the table. Caught TT in MP, 3x BB and was called by bigstack on the button. Flop was AT3 rainbow, so I was very confident that I had the absolute best hand here - he would have re-raised preflop with AA and he probably has AJ+ so I can really extract some chips now. Fastplay is the new slowplay, so I led out with a 1/3 pot bet. He called. Turn was a blank, I bet about half the pot and he pushed over the top. I instacall and add his chips to mine. HH posted as Comment #5. I'm second in chips with T50k, we're down inside 20 players remaining. T25k is the average chipstack.

3:45 in, on the bubble of the final table with 11 left. Zero post-flop poker being played at our table - first pre-flop raise takes the blinds. I'm remaining tight agressive, not stealing too often but just with solid hands as I'm aware that people are ready to come back over the top. Still, i'm able to accumulate with my big stack. I'm still second in chips, now up to T60k.

3:48 in, we hit the final table. First hand I'm dealt two beautiful black aces, I 3x the BB, get a push behind of a small stack and then a bigstack calls the push. I re-raise enough to put the bigstack all in, as I really don't want to see this go multiway and there's a very nice amount of dead money in there now. Aces are good and I'm the chipleader at the final table. (Hand history as Comment #6) Nine left, I've got T90k.

4:15 in, another break. Seven players remain. Still chiplead, continuing to slowly accumulate. Knocked one guy out with AK versus his A8o, otherwise just taking down the blinds or playing aggressively when we do see a flop. I'm at T133k, average among the seven remaining is T61k. Second place is T113k, then one person at T70k, one at T50k, and three shorties under T20k. Gameplan from here is to concentrate on accumulating the chips from the shorties, continue to "play perfect poker".

5:00 in almost exactly, and lost the heads up battle with deuce248. Got sucked out on the river twice heads up, the first time when I had a split pair of eights and we got all the money in the middle against his pocket sixes. Would have been the game, right there, as I had him covered. Beautiful, can't do much better than getting in as more than a 90%-10% favorite. But he caught a six on the river and it was back to the battle. Went on to beat another hand of mine catching a six-outer on the river a few hands later, and it was downhill quickly from there. Suckouts posted in the comments for posterity. Eh, that's poker. Still a little bitter, as I absolutely dominated the final table and should have had the $5k payday if not for the bad beat catching his two outer.

Still a very nice $3225 payday, very glad I decided to pull the trigger as I almost didn't enter to focus on the STTs.