Trying to Qualify in order to Qualify

So another 3,500 player tournament.

I call with Q-Q in first position. Yeah I am looking to trap. It's early on and I want to go all-in with the hand.

Then a player calls and another player makes a medium-big raise - about 800 and then a donk from the small blind puts in all his chips.

I go over the top for a few more chips - and get 2 callers.

The other hands: QQ and 10-10 and the donk had 5-5 and made a straight.

The next hand I had a few chips, flopped the 2nd nut straight, but was all-in and a guy hit a gut shot for a bigger straight and I am gone.

Didn't feel bad because I had my chips in with the best of it.

Played in 6 sit and gos and won 2 of them so I made a few bucks.

Toasterhead Gets Knocked Out

I'd like to blame it on the fact that I was hungover, but I would have been better off not showing up.

One time I raised the minimum with aces, the flop came Q-J-2 and I got check raised for about 700 in chips. I put the guy all-in and he has Q-J. I get lucky and catch a 2 on the river and double up, but I am not feeling so great about my play.

Then 2 players call and I'm sitting on J-J. I have over 7,000 in chips and over 1,000 players have been knocked out so I am coasting along above the average. I go all-in here, figuring nobody will call. But why? I'm risking over 7,000 in chips and my tournament life in order to to win 600. Anybody with a better hand will certainly call. As it turns out the little blind has aces and I get knocked out.

Well I had 15 chips left and went all-in the next hand.

I didn't mind last week so much because I played as well as I could and a guy got really lucky on me, but I played terrible this week and deserved to lose and it doesn't sit too well.

I eased the pain with 2 hot dogs smothered in mustard and a big bowl of ice cream with hot fudge sauce sprinkled with peanut M & M's.

Maybe if I sleep for 3 months straight I will forget about this one.

Trying to Qualify Week 2

I registered for a bunch more of Party Poker freerolls. When I was checking my e-mail before bed at 2am the other night I logged in and was taken to one of the tournaments in progress. There were about 1,000 players knocked out already and I had 2,100 odd chips so I thought I'd play for a while. For the whole tournament I was at a table of players, the majority of whom did not know the first thing about poker. I managed to build up some chips by going all-in with QQ and Q-10 suited called me. Players love those suited cards. They look so pretty. I made a 15,000 raise later with AK and some lady called me with Q-J and hit a Jack. It wasn't looking to good at that point, but I doubled up again when I took AK suited against K-Q suited for all my chips and doubled up again. One player started going nuts at our table, raising every hand and I called with A-9 suited. He had 9-10 and a player overcalled with K-9. Then another player started to self-destruct, raising 4 hands in a row. I had A-5 and thought about going over the top. I should have, but folded. He had 8-5 and a player won with K-8. I would've won with the Ace and missed a nice opportunity to double up. I was kicking myself. I played tight, then went all-in with A-K and A-J came over the top of me and flopped a Jack. I was down to about 7k in chips and waiting. A player with a huge chip stack made a raise and I called for about 1/2 my chips with 6-6. I had seen him go all-in with Ace high so I was going to call if low cards came. The flop came 4-4-8 so I called when he went all-in and doubled up when he showed A-J and didn't hit. I went all-in later with 3-3 in the big blind heads up. The little blind had just called and when I went all-in he showed K-J suited and I doubled up. Then I got lucky because the blinds on either side of me left the table. And the guy on the button had a huge chip stack so I thought he would attack my blinds. He didn't, but he was crazy enough to do anything if a player called in front of him so several times I kept my big blind. When I was the small blind the same thing happened several times. Everyone folded and I raised the missing big blind and took it. I coasted like this, winning one more race with 10-10 against K-Q suited. A funny thing happened late - with about 3 players remaining a guy with about 400,000 in chips called a guy who had over a million with A-Q. The guy with over a million was going all-in every hand trying to force players out. Well, he caught a 7 on the river and knocked the guy with 400,000 plus in chips out. How stupid was that? He could have got up and gone to sleep and been playing in a tournament to get to the World Series. Instead he calls an all-in. If he had aces, he should have folded. The top 50 get-in. There is no special prize for 1st. 1-50 are the same. I went out 48th with A-10 against Q-J. So I will be playing again Saturday for a chance to freeroll to the WSOP. At least this time it only took 4 hours and I got in by playing less than one full tournament.