PCA Day 3

I came into the day 2nd in chips, but my table draw looked pretty bad. Nenad Medic (recently won Foxwoods, very good player) was to my left and semi-short and to his left were three pretty healthy stacks. I won a decent pot early where I reraised preflop and bet the flop and my opponent folded the flop so I was at around 450k when the first big hand happened.

Hand 1: 3000/6000/500

A pretty big stack raises early-middle to 17k and I cold call on the button with AQo. He'd been pretty active and seemed to play very well. I later found out he was Isaac Haxton, who went on to finish 2nd in the tournament. Flop comes AK2 and he thinks and checks. I check behind and the turn comes an offsuit J. He bets 25k, I think and call. River's a complete blank, he thinks and bets 80k. I tank a little bit and call, he mucks.

I win some more pots and peak at around 650k before my first little meltdown.

Hand 2: 3000/6000/500

Isaac raises to 17k in the CO and I defend my big blind with KdTd. Flop comes KsJxTs. I check, he thinks a while and eventually pushes. He'd lost a bunch of pots recently and his push was for somewhere around 150-160k. It was a pretty huge overbet and I called fairly quickly. He showed As6s and turned the 3s.

Hand 3: 4000/8000/1000

A guy raises to 25k earlyish and I'm pretty sure he doesn't have a monster. He was pretty straightforward postflop as well so even if he calls I was pretty sure he'd check fold a ton of flops. I make is 80k with 55 from middlish. Folds to him, he thinks and calls. Flop J73r. He checks, I bet 110k, he shoves and shows JJ after I muck.

A couple other little hands go bad and all of a sudden I'm down around 250k. I win a decent pot firing two barrels after raising preflop with JT on a QxxA board and another with KK when my reraise gets called to get back around 400k. Then I go on a nice little rush.

Hands 4/5/6: 5000/10000/1000
Guy who just got sucked out on shoves ~110k, I reshove with JJ and beat his 99.
I raise to 25k on the button with 77, sb shoves 175k and I think and call. He has K7o and my hand holds.
I raise to in the cutoff with 88. SB shoves about 110k, I call and beat his 66.

This little rush, plus a couple resteals get me to around 850k.

Hand 7: 6000/12000/1500

A pretty tight guy raises to 46k in mp. All his raises are pretty big and he doesn't open much, so I've yet to play back at him. I reraise QQ to 130k. He shoves for around 375k total and I call. He has AQ and for the first time all tournament I get sucked out on. This was a pretty crappy time for it, as I would've had around 1.25M in chips if I'd won. Instead I was down to 450k or so, and after doubling up another short stack the next hand with 44<88 I was below 400k.

The rest of it is kind of a blur. We're down to around 30 players at this point and I can't get anything going. I reraise a pretty aggressive guy with 65s, he calls and then pushes over my turn bet (the AQ3 flop went check check). This pretty much cripples me. Then I shove 235k with 99 at 8k/16k and lose to a shorter stack's A7. Finally, after shoving about 5 times in one orbit and going from 80k to 171k, I shove AT, get called by JJ and lose.

All in all it was a pretty good run and a pretty solid result, but obviously a disappointing finish.

Steve