A couple hands

Well, I guess I may as well post a bit more of a tournament summary. We started the tournament with 20k in chips, 50/100 blinds and 90 minute levels. I pretty much immediately knew I wasn't at a good table. Freddy Bonyadi was two to my left, Joe Awada across the table, and a bunch of people who were immediately getting pictures taken and quick interviews done. I played pretty aggressively early and won a bunch of pots to get up to about 23k. Then a biggish bluff went badly and I was back down to around 18k. At this point I pretty much had to slow down because the table got very aggressive. Anthony Reategui (I probably butchered the spelling of this, but he's a very good player who recently won a WSOP bracelet) sat down and the whole table got very loose. I also completely stopped picking up hands so it got pretty frustrating. Anyways, there were really only a couple interesting hands and here they are.

Hand 1: I'm down to around 10k from just constantly losing pots, blinds are 100/200. I raise to 600 in the CO with QhTh and the button makes it 1500. He's a pretty loud and talkative guy, sounds aggressive but hasn't reraised often and this small reraise makes a big hand pretty likely. That said, the guy is fairly readable so I decided to make the slightly loose call. Flop AxJx5h. I check, he checks. Turn Jh. I am about to bet but he pretty much gets ready to call and I'm 100% sure he will, so I check. He checks. River Kx. I bet 1500, he pretty quickly puts me all-in. I shake my head, tell him I can't possibly have the best hand and bitterly throw my cards face up in the muck. He says something about how I can't fold that and the following conversation ensues:
Me: "Show me a worse hand."
Him: "I'm not showing my hand."
Me: "I'll give you $10 if you show me a worse hand...$20...$50..." (I'm not sure how much higher I would've gone, but I was pretty sure.)
He shows KK.

Hand 2: Last hand before the break, I'm back up to about 9000 and the blinds are still 100/200. I raise to 600 in the CO with T8o and the bb defends. The bb is John Hoang who I've never heard of but the way the table has been talking about him, he's done very well recently. He's pretty loose and pretty aggressive, probably a little too much so. Flop 872r and he leads 900. I call. I've virtually certain I'm ahead here. Turn 6, he leads 2000, I call, still fairly sure I'm ahead. River A and he pushes. I think for a few seconds, still fairly confident I'm ahead. I call and am very surprised to see him turn over 85...that's a pretty strange way to play that, but either way I'm back to almost 20k.

Hand 3: I get moved to a new table and raise to 600 with 87s in late position. The cutoff who has a lot of chips makes it 1300 and I call. Flop A63r. I check, he bets 1300. He virtually always has AA/KK/QQ and sometimes AK, so I make it 3500. He thinks for like 5 seconds and pushes. Oops.

Hand 4: Blinds 150/300/50, I have 11k or so now. MP raises to 850 which he's done fairly often in my 3-4 orbits at the table. I call on the button with AQo. Flop AJx. He bets 900, I call. Turn K. He bets 2100 and I probably should fold but I call. River x. He bets 3100 and I should really really fold now but talk myself into calling. AJ is good and I'm down to 3000.

Hand 5: I push over a limper with QJ and he folds to get me to 4k on my bb. The cutoff raises to 800 and I have KJs and push. He doesn't think long before calling with 77 and I lose the race.

Anyways, the tournament was super frustrating. I just never was able to get anything going. I think my table draws were a big part of that, combined with some bad timing on bluffs and things.

Nat and I ended up moving our flight up so I'm actually back in Waterloo now. Nat didn't really like the neighbourhood we were in (it was pretty sketchy) and I wasn't really in a touristy mood after the tournament, so I think it's best that we flew back early. Hopefully we'll get a change to go back sometime and see all the things we missed (and stay in a little nicer place...)

Steve