Money in tha bank......

So last night (this morning) I played my normal $5 re-buy and had a great showing but once again came up short(I'll explain). For the entire tourney I was in the top 25 with a well above average stack and was playing really good poker...making moves when I needed to and winning the flips. I believe it was at the 1500/3000 level where this hand went down and put me in real contention.

PokerStars Game #10727437579: Tournament #54104504 $5.00+$0.50 Hold'em
No Limit - Level XV (1500/3000) - 2007/07/02 - 09:04:58 (ET)
Table '54104504 29' 9-max Seat #1 is the button
Seat 1: Rickydee4 (30738 in chips)
Seat 2: kito-80 (49917 in chips)
Seat 3: Pigskin10 (21718 in chips)
Seat 4: lucasro (36479 in chips)
Seat 5: drivenes (28942 in chips)
Seat 6: Elvis DK7 (69130 in chips)
Seat 7: tortuga0981 (46734 in chips)
Seat 8: Bubbagump22 (42642 in chips)
Seat 9: tom.dieRaupe (17803 in chips)
Rickydee4: posts the ante 300
kito-80: posts the ante 300
Pigskin10: posts the ante 300
lucasro: posts the ante 300
drivenes: posts the ante 300
Elvis DK7: posts the ante 300
tortuga0981 : posts the ante 300
Bubbagump22: posts the ante 300
tom.dieRaupe: posts the ante 300
kito-80: posts small blind 1500
Pigskin10: posts big blind 3000

Holecards:
Dealt to tortuga0981 [6d6c]
CALL lucasro, 3000
FOLD drivenes
CALL Elvis DK7, 3000
CALL tortuga0981 , 3000
FOLD Bubbagump22
FOLD tom.dieRaupe
FOLD Rickydee4
CALL kito-80, 1500
CHECK Pigskin10:

Flop:
[ 7s 10c 6s]
BET kito-80, 3000
FOLD Pigskin10
RAISE lucasro, 9000 to 12000
FOLD Elvis DK7
RAISE tortuga0981 , 31434 to 43434 and is all-in
FOLD kito-80
CALL lucasro, 21179 and is all-in

Turn:
[ 7s 10c 6s] [9s]

River:
[ 7s 10c 6s 9s] [2h]

Showdown:
lucasro: shows [KdKh] (a pair of Kings)
tortuga0981 : shows [6d 6c] (three of a kind Sixes)
tortuga0981 collected 87058 from pot
---------------------------------------------

From there I chipped up nicely and looked to be heading for a nice final table but a weird tourney situation came up as we reached the final 2 tables. The chip leader was holding a ridiculous amount of chips so the diparity amoungst the rest of us was very close. I'm talking, one hand I'b be in 10th and then after stealing the blinds I'd be in 2nd or 3rd. It was really weird and made it hard to manouver. Anyway, when we were down to 12 I was in the BB, 5K/10K blinds w/ K9off. My stack is 105K and the UTG short stack who only had 5 1/2 bb's pushed. It folded around to me and my thought were as follows....

1) he has roughly 5 bb's
2) next hand he gets hit w/ the BB and is reduced to nothing
3) all that being said K9 is a close call but I think it is ahead.

I call and he flips AA! I left a few words fly and get reduced to 40K. The next hand it gets folded around to me in the SB and I push on this same guy with J5c and get insta called w/ QQ. GG me and I bust in 12th for $50 bucks.


So I head to work having not slept and now steaming over the tough tourney. I keep having to tell myself that I played a great tournament and that one of these close calls has to eventually pan out. So I get home from work around 3:00 and crash until around 8:00. I get some dinner and hit the tourneys right back where I left off. I played in 2 tounraments, a $20 freezeout and a $4 180 man. In the $4 tourney I get one outted after flopping quads...yes thats right you heard me corectlly. We get it in preflop, QQ vs. K10d and I flopped quad Q's and he turned the royal flush. I couldn't help but laugh and having a decent stack in the $20 freezeout I knew I still had something to work with.

Well 3 hours later I am heading into the final table of the $20 tourney with a stack good enough for second place. The final table played pretty tight at first, then one player caught the biggest rush of cards ever and knocked out almost every player with short stacks. I tighten up knowing that top three places get over a grand w/ 1st bringing home $2,700. I had a mediocre run of cards and play them as well as I could and what do you know, I FINSHED IN 2nd for $1700!

So like I've been saying all along, I knew it was close w/ the way I have been playing and I finally got over than hump for a decent sized cash. Something funny about the score tonight is that going in to the tournament I was sitting with $205 in my account and now I have a bankroll again of around 2K! Of course I'm excited and all about the money, but more than anything I now have a huge boost of confidence for my poker playing abillities. I knew I was on the cuspt of something big getting so close so often and now I have the funds to step it up a bit and see what I'm really made of!