Sunday Million Result - Back To Basics

Sadly this is not a long story but I played pretty well in the limited time I contested this weeks Sunday Million. Early on I struggled to get anything going, whilst at the same time not putting myself at risk. The best hand I got in the first hour was a pair of nines but I kept patient and did not get frustrated. After about an hour and a half I changed tables, now with only half original stack. To keep my stack together I raised in a couple of spots with poor hands when not getting cards when I would look strong after inactivity. This was a lesson learned from the Red Spade Open. The final two hands before the second break playing against the table chip leader sealed my fate. Finally I got two premium hands and against a loose big stack. In the first he tried to bully me off Jacks and put me all in pre-flop. I called and held up against his A8. The very next hand I was dealt aces in the big blind. After a raise and a call the loose chip leader made a big squeeze style raise to around half my stack. This looked very promising. I went all in, the early raiser and caller folded and I faced king jack off suit for a massive boost to my Sunday Million dream. An ace on the flop looked promising but a ten also meant a queen would see me knocked out - her Majesty duly arrived on the turn and I could not fill up on the river. I ended 3767th out of 6397 who played. This final hand could have given me a decent platform to progress in the tournament. Pre-flop I was around 86% to have a well above average stack with just over half the players left. Overall I am happy that I did nothing wrong but am a little frustrated because I don't play enough of these to iron out the variance - I needed my luck to hold. Oh well, not a bad effort. I played a total of forty one MTTs in August, cashing in only four of them for a total of $65. None of my big buy ins went well enough to cash and none of my smaller buy ins went far enough to really matter. As a result I have lost around $500 playing tournament poker in this month, a decent percentage of my profits for the year. I have been keen to take a shot for some time. Hopefully I have got it out of my system. I really need to get back to basics - playing the games I know and love the best. So it is back to grinding the Maui Jackpot Sit N Gos for me. See you at the tables. Later on I checked to see if my Nemesis FaKeOrReaL was still in the tournament. He was not and did not make the money which was no great surprise but what did shock me was his presence at six cash tables of $50-$100 Pot Limit Omaha. Over the six tables he was playing with around $40,000, nearly twice my poker earnings! Just shows the level of player you can compete with in the Sunday Million (In this case a high stakes cash game player). It also shows don't judge a player on the basis of twenty minutes at the same table.