Almost got there

One more night of playing a MTT. Back to the $5 45 person NL Hold'em sng. For the second night in a row, I CASHED!
This will help the bankroll, but I could smell first place.

The villian in this story was basically a donkey, kicking around and getting lucky at just the right times. I quite sure, he's a novice. The final table in this tournament just didn't seem to be as experienced as the final tables I'm used to in the 9 person sngs.
Quite often, a short stack would push all in for less than 2 BB, and NO ONE CALLED! Come on folks! The lucky folks did it when I was UTG.
Buy pots was easy and could be done almost at will. There were a lot of walks.

The picture on the right shows the hand that I tried to knock him out first. No luck. He spikes the ace on the river.

I held the chip lead for most of the times we were heads up. This was the hand that I lost it for the first time.

The next time I caught him getting lucky, I had the ace and he had a king, I don't necessarily question him playing this hand all in, but he'd play almost anything all in. And I don't mean pushing all in, I mean calling it.

Every hand was good, and it had been this way most of the way through the tournament.

Again he spiked the card he needed.

Bottom line though, I played patient and put my money in the pot when I was ahead. I even thought through people's betting patterns to make sure I was thinking things through.

I've bought my self some buy-ins now for future tournaments and I'm starting to feel comfortable with this format again.