Wow! Holy Crap! I won the friggin Mookie!

Please excuse my French...but did you see who won the Mookie?

Wow. My biggest cash ever! I'm sure a few people that play bigger tournaments will see this and some of you watched me play. Hopefully, I didn't donk it up too much.

Thanks a bunch to Bodie25. He talked me into entering this just minutes before it started. I'd been having a horrible stretch at the tables. $10 seemed like a lot money to throw away considering I couldn't even beat a $1 table today.

Congrats to KngofKngs. One heck of a match heads up.

I read bayne_s' blog every day. Congrats on your deep finish as well. It was an honor to play with you.

A very special thanks goes to all the guys at BuddyDank Radio with the extra thanks to Chad. When given the option to take the field (KngofKngs and myself), the crew took the pass. The show was fantastic as usual. Great job guys!

To basically sum up the tournament...I played tight and avoided being caught with my pants down. Last week was my first Mookie, I made a hero call and went home. It was the right call, but the aggressor had way to many outs and me covered. Not a good combination.

Tonight, I scored a bit pot early. The blinds are 20/40. The table folds to me on the button. I raised with J♣10♠ to 140 and JoeSpeaker calls from the SB. The flop comes Q♠10♣2♣. JoeSpeaker bets 240. Seemed like a weird bet to me, I have second pair and call. The turn was a 10♦. Joe raises to 640. I don't like the flush draw or the straight draw and decide to end it right here. So I push my all my chips and which has him covered. He calls and tables KJ for the straight draw. My set holds!

Another first for me tonight was the fact that when the Mookie started, I was playing a $5 9 person sng that just wouldn't end. So the Mookie is going on and I'm heads up in the tournament I need to win to pay for the Mookie...geez. Nothing like a little extra stress.

With my attention more highly focused on the SNG, I trudged along in the Mookie. Raised and bought a few blinds, just enough to keep me at my current chip level. I also tried to keep my BB a little less tempting. I was defending my blind. Be ready to call a reraise when you go for my BB.

I really seemed to like having a stack around 6000. I stayed at that level almost the entire tournament. I briefly got her up to 10,000 but the donked off 3500 to IslandBum when I ran 10s in to aces. CRAP!

Staying the course, it got down to two tables. The guys at BDR were spouting the praises of some the really good players still left and I'll be honest, I wasn't really ready to put the money on me yet. 18 people left and I'm in the bottom third of the leader board.

With the blinds and antes starting to get painful. Much more stealing was going on. This also provided many an opportunity to resteal as well. I kept myself alive playing this game for quite awhile. Staying in the pack and not doing anything stupid until we got to the final table.

I got to the final table with 7256 in chips. I wasn't the short stack, but definitely not a fat stack. Muhctim had gotten there with 59,632. I stayed out of the way and stealing from the people that seemed to be playing tight and avoiding the loose cannons as much as possible.

One by one, people dropped from the tournament. When the table was down to 8 people, I found myself in the BB. The blinds are 800/400 + 100. It folds to cemfredmd on the button. He raises to 2400. I looked down and found K♦J♦, My gut tells me that this is a steal and this is the kind of hand that can beat a steal. Even if it's not a steal, this this the kind of hand that will draw well and win. I push it all in and put the pressure back on cemfredmd. He calls and turns over tens. I hit the king on the flop. Whew! I won a race. This also moved me up to 13,412 chips. I actually started think i could cash in this thing.

Now...to avoid doing something stupid.

I kept the pressure up and not trying to get to weak. Since we were short handed and I came to win this thing without making a fool of myself, I opened my range of hands up for bigger raises. I was also switching it up a lot here too. Sometimes I was making loose calls, but mostly playing tight. Heck, finishing 4th would be my biggest cash to date.

One by one, people leave the game. I watched in amazement as muhctim went from a monster chip lead to out of the tournament in 4th place.

We were down to 3. Bayne_s was the only name I knew of the two, and his record is quite impressive. Watching him play inspired me to be patient and think through my actions. I never saw him do anything quickly. Everything seemed to come with thought.

With one last race before heads up. Bayne_s and I found ourselves racing to destiny...him with AK0 and me with QQ. Help never came and my queens held up.

This is now clearly my biggest cash ever, but I surprisingly feel very comfortable. I play a LOT of SNGs. MTTs just aren't my thing. They take a long time and my window of opportunity to play poker is usually limited. But I've definitely been in this spot before. I technically didn't take him out until the next hand, but he was totally crippled.

Heads up arrives and it looks like: Seat 2: KngofKngs (110,446)Seat 3: OhCaptain (42,554)

Not quite a 3:1 chip advantage, but pretty close. One advantage of playing a lot of SNGs, I feel very comfortable playing heads up. All I needed to do was ignore the fact this win would represent 66% of my current bankroll.

I started playing with the idea that I had nothing to lose. I'd be proud of the fact that I took 2nd. This is only the second time I've played this tournament, but I definitely wanted to win more.

We battled on for a while and I grinded my way back to a more manageable ~70,000 to 80,000 stack sizes. This helps by making my pressure more useful. He calls and looses and he finds himself with a big hill to climb.

The tide turned when KngofKngs found his JT behind my QQ. I doubled through him! Whew!

This swung the chip lead 6:1 in my favor. I kept the pressure on, trying to avoid doubling him up and letting him back in.

The final hand of the night was both exciting and a little disappointing. I really didn't want to win this by sucking out, but I did. We got all the chips in. Me with AT KngofKngs with AJ. A luck ten on the river and it was all over.

Wow, what a ride. Many thanks to Bodie25 for not only talking me into playing, but getting most of these screenshots. I kept forgetting to click the button.

Way past my bedtime! Thank god I'm on vacation this week. Hopefully I didn't donk this up too much. BTW...welcome to my blog!

See you next week!