So I finally broke through to the FT of the $3R last night, came 5/3700 for about $1350

Took those comments from the $27.50 and definitely upped my aggression factor in position to take down blinds/pots post flop on ragged boards.
Managed to single out the passive players at the table to steal from and maniacs to avoid. I was fortunate that from about the end of the 3rd hour to the end of the 6th the BB when I was SB was ultra passive and folded to any steal.

I only got all in with all my money preflop on a race once (AKhh>99), won more races/60:40's than I lost vs shorties (until the FT where I didn't win any :/).
I did get massively paid off with Aces twice and Kings once which was nice and was always in the top 30 all the way from 500 players down (<3 playing big stack)

Went into the FT 2/9 with a good read on all the players (some were truly dreadful!) and felt confident at taking it down. Unfortunately couldn't get anything to hold up and eventually busted out to one of the donks with a horrific river. I reckon if I sat down with thos eplayers on a 9 man SnG I'd win about 1/3, just wasn't to be this time. Quite annoyed I didn't win 6.3k but still a decent pay day.

Anyway, here are a few hands of interest.

#132 - last hand before 2nd break

Big Blind is 400 (9 handed)

MP1 (t26627)
Hero (t16100)

Preflop: Hero is CO with 9, 9.
2 folds, MP1 calls t400, 2 folds, Hero raises to t1225, 3 folds, MP1 calls t825.

Flop: (t2650) 3, Q, 5 (2 players)
MP1 checks, Hero bets t1650, MP1 raises to t3300, Hero ???

I have been quite active and I have seen this guy check-reraise min on a raggedy board before (didn't see cards). Villain seems quite weak generally.
Deep enough to make a call with position to evaluate later streets?

#153
Big Blind is 600 (9 handed)

CO (t20935)
Hero (t20825)

Preflop: Hero is MP1 with , .
2 folds, Hero raises to t1625, 2 folds, CO raises to t5285, 3 folds, Hero folds.

Final Pot: t3600

This is a standard fold but the villain seems tilted, just lost half his stack to a bad beat. He had said in chat, "and tired of playing i want to gamble or be out gl." a few hands before.
Still I think AQ is too weak to get all in here and I hate playing bloated pots with AQ OOP.

#176
Big Blind is 1000 (9 handed)

Hero (t39327)
SB (t28933)


Preflop: Hero is CO with , .
5 folds, Hero raises to t2525, 1 fold, SB calls t2025, 1 fold.

Flop: (t5350) , , (2 players)
SB checks, Hero bets t3300, SB calls t3300.

Turn: (t11950) (2 players)
SB checks, Hero???

Not too scared of KJ here, villain seems fairly solid, best option here?

#225
Big Blind is t3000 (9 handed)

Hero (t101542)
Button (t46099)
SB (t55058)
BB (t45380)
UTG+1 (t10144)

Preflop: Hero is CO with , .
1 fold, UTG+1 raises to t9844, 3 folds, Hero ??

Call to chip up against short stack shoving with huge range? Raise to isolate?

#230
Big Blind is 3000 (9 handed)

Hero (t117086)
CO (t162923)

Preflop: Hero is BB with , .
4 folds, CO raises to t9300, 2 folds. Hero ???

This is a spot I'm unsure of what to do. It seems like a good spot to resteal against an active player. I'm quite deep so I have a wide range of options. Is a call good? Fold bad?

#233
Big Blind is 3000 (8 handed)
Hero (t111686)
Button (t65299)
SB (t91008)
BB (t55580)
UTG+1 (t168923)

Preflop: Hero is CO with , .
1 folds, UTG raises to t9300, 2 folds. Hero ???

3 hands later, same villain. !?!?!?

Post a couple more later, converter seems to be broken.

Amazing reading thru the hand history how clearly I remember all the hands past the 2nd hour

For some reason can't get stack sizes with this converter :/

Hand # 247

MP1 (154398)
Hero (172466)

Blinds: t2000/t4000
(Ante: t400)
9 players
Converter

Pre-flop: (9 players) Hero is BB with
2 folds, MP1 raises to t20000, 5 folds, Hero ??


Villain is completely new at table, the 5x raise just screams DONK but I don't think we're quite deep enough to set mine. Move?

#268
Blinds: t2500/t5000
(Ante: t500)
9 players
Converter
Seat 1: freshy555 (24560 in chips)
Seat 2: JohnnyD98 (67368 in chips)
Seat 3: Huzz81 (54918 in chips)
Seat 4: AHighwayStar (221485 in chips)
Seat 5: Refu$e2Lose (166700 in chips)
Seat 6: apark930 (198688 in chips)
Seat 7: yankitoz (250822 in chips)
Seat 8: slowmotion4m (57012 in chips)
Seat 9: urbanracer (75000 in chips)

Pre-flop: (9 players) Hero is MP3 with
2 folds, MP1 calls t5000 (pot was t12000), MP2 raises all-in t54418, Hero ??

Too many to act behind to call? Limper has limped with regularity.

#322
Blinds: t6000/t12000
(Ante: t1200)
8 players
Converter
Seat 1: dartplayer09 (70640 in chips)
Seat 2: mamai77 (211614 in chips)
Seat 3: AAAAces (302208 in chips)
Seat 4: PPfinest (249118 in chips)
Seat 5: AHighwayStar (357649 in chips)
Seat 7: coolness2004 (309400 in chips)
Seat 8: cirus Ger (545963 in chips)
Seat 9: Sternbfree (356024 in chips)

Pre-flop: (8 players) Hero is BB with
2 folds, MP1 raises to t32500, MP2 folds, CO calls t32500 (pot was t60100), 2 folds, Hero ???
Ship it in?

There's not too much of interest until the last 3 tables.
I picked up a lot of chips on the 18 player bubble but seemed to lose momentum some what on the 2nd and final tables. Had quite a bad run of hands, lost a couple of races against shorties to make me a medium stack and eventually busted out AK < Q9 on the river against a terrible player who rivered their way out of busting twice on the 2nd last table (would have been back to 3rd in chips).

Had that fantastic adrenalin rush you get deep in tournaments from 45 players down to 9 but was quite calm for the FT which surprised me, maybe the prospect of a decent sum of $$ numbed my emotions.

Bustout

Dealt to AHighwayStar [Ad Kd]
Spielführer: folds
Robcars2: raises 180000 to 360000
mgw21: folds
yankitoz: folds
AHighwayStar: raises 921000 to 1281000 and is all-in
Robcars2: calls 921000
*** FLOP *** [4h 7s Jd]
*** TURN *** [4h 7s Jd] [6s]
*** RIVER *** [4h 7s Jd 6s] [9s]
*** SHOW DOWN ***
AHighwayStar: shows [Ad Kd] (high card Ace)
Robcars2: shows [9h Qs] (a pair of Nines)
AHighwayStar said, "]"
AHighwayStar said, "no"
mgw21 said, "ul"
Robcars2 collected 2742000 from pot
mgw21 said, "gg"

*laptop out of window*

Robcars was beyond bad. This wasn't too bad I guess but the guy generally shouldn't have been there.. Was for half his stack though :/

WTG...I never get tired of reading (or posting, lol) success stories..I hope our esteemed mod doesnt either!

#132 with no draws on board calling here is risky. Youve seen the move before which, if the circumstances were very similar, may mean his line is testing your CB with overcards. It would be helpful if you have reads on how hes played other over cards preflop. I would probably make a nitty fold here. If there were a draw on board Id call

#153 Has he actually gambled it up after his speech or is this the first hand hes made a move? AQ seems to be pretty nitty fold under normal circumstances and I would tend to call without the speech. With the speech Id call if he had actually gambled before, fold if its the first time move. You think its a standard fold, am I calling these too loose? It may be buy in dependent with more 3 bets at higher stakes?

#176 value bet a little less than half pot, so he might not feel that calling commits him to two cards

#225 I would just call. Raising to isolate here commits a lot of chips when you have a nice but not overwhelming stack, and if your isolation does get called you are prolly dominated, since I dont see many underpairs giving you a race after a push, reraise.

#230 This is hand where PT and HUD are invaluable. You say hes been active, but having specific stats on steal attempts would make my decision here. In general I would reraise based on the cards alone, because Im not calling with it OOP, but its a strong and against a stealer. He would need to be tighter than 13% of all hands for ATs not to have breakeven equity.

#233 the converter messed this up a little, I assume it was realy UTG+1 raising.Im going to give him EP respoect here, especially if you restole on him in 230

Yea it was UTG + 1 in 233.
For 153, I hadn;t seen him gamble it up (although he did very shortly afterwards with Q8o). I'm not saying it's definitely a standard fold.
Just wondering if you really want to be playing a 10k+ pot with 15k behind OOP vs a possible maniac.


Is it definitely worth investing in PT/HUD for tournies?
Probably oughta look into it, I was really on my game for most of last night (only tournament I played - 1 tabling ftw!) but when it got to 6/7am I probably missed a few crucial betting patterns on the last 3 tables where PT/HUD would help.
I'll look into it, taking a break from poker for a month or so shortly due to exams and getting an internship in the summer so might not really be playing much til September :/.

I'll buy you pt and hud if you get my son an internship, lol