A win.....at last!

Given the recent run I decided that I would play at the $2 STT level. I have the bankroll for the $5 games but the way I seem to be getting shafted by the poker goods means I'm pretty low on confidence and so its always wise to move down if you are not in a winning frame of mind! Anyhow I am pleased to report that I won the STT I played today for $8.

I made a conscious decision to try and avoid flat calling today and if I was gonna enter a pot I would raise. I had a slow start and watched 2 muppets get knocked out in the first 1st level by the same guy who now had an 18k stack which he was using to bully. Unfortunately he was 2 to my left! In level 2 I picked up QQ on the button and raised to 180. I got 3 callers including the chip leader in the big blind. The flop was K64 and I folded to his 360 bet as the other 2 also called. If it had been heads up I may have called or raised to find out where I was but with 2 others calling, one was bound to have a K and this was proved correct as the chip leader won with 2 pairs with his K7. My confidence was so low that even with QQ and just 1 over card I'm convincing myself I'm behind but I guess my caution was justified here!

The turning point came in level 2 when I picked up 88 and raised 120. The big chip leader called and the flop was a good looking Q85 rainbow to give me a set. I bet 140 and he called. The turn was 6 and he checked so I bet half the pot again and was re-raised to 1.4k so he obviously had something! Did he have 97, QQ? Well, if he did then so be it so I called as I figured I was ahead. The river was an A and with only 1.8k left, an all in push was the only move. He called and showed 66 for a turned set and I won 9.4k and was now 2nd.

I wasn't involved in any real big pots but took a few down with KK twice after preflop raises and and with AT twice, when once I turned a set and won 1.3k. After that it was mainly winning with preflop raises and continuation bets if the flop was checked to me with hands like 77, A9, JJ, A8, AQ.

The bubble seemed to take an age but I managed to knock out the short stack with my 99 after he re-raised my 1.2k preflop raise and I called for an extra 1.5k. I was in good shape against his 55 and there was no suck out for him.

Heads up I was was 32k-8k chip dog so it wasn't looking good! As expected he was aggressive and I wasn't getting anything to play back at him with and was down to 4k at one stage. I then had a mini-comeback and got up to 10k after winning 3 or 4 pots in a row. I then managed to get up to 30k after hitting a straight on the turn after he gave me a free card and he re-raised me looking to finish me off! It was then up and down with the chip lead swapping a couple of times. I was unlucky not to win sooner as twice he came out on top in the classic pair versus over cards coin-flip situation.

A key hand which kept me in the game was was when I raised it up with QQ and he pushed all in with Q9. He had me covered but my QQ held up. The last hand was when I raised 9k with 99 and he pushed back for 15k with QT. I called the extra 6k and this time the 22266 board gave me the win!

I guess that my decision to only raise preflop and not flat call was a good one and my poker tracker stats for this game have me raising over 18% of the time preflop. Much of this was in the last few levels where I pretty much raised every time I went into a pot and when I was heads up. But I was pleased that in the first few levels I didn't flat call once preflop and only checked preflop when in the big blind which is ok. Raising helps define your hand and even though some times I folded when I was re-raised, at least I knew where I was which probably saved me plenty of chips!


Challenge bankroll is now $287.96