As with ever tournament, there always seems to be 1 or 2 significant hands that either knock you out of contention, or put you in a very good position to win. Both tournaments had such hands.
In the $3.30 tournament, in which I won the whole thing for a prize total of $72, I actually had 2 very significant hands, and both against the same guy. The first hand, I was getting pretty low in chips, so when the table chip leader re-raised me all-in, and I had KK, it was an automatic call. Well, he had AA, and I was sure my night was done. The flop was 10-J-4, and when a Q showed up on the river, I knew I had 6 outs to win. I could hit one of four nines to make the straight, but somehow, online poker loves a little more irony, and I hit one of 2 remaining aces to make the highly unlikely straight and double up. 3 or 4 hands later, after an awesome rush of cards, I was in 1st place, with 25 players left, and I cruised into the final table.
Now down to the final 6, the blinds are getting pretty steep, and my chip stack is about average. The guy I played that previous hand against made a nice comeback, and is the clear chip leader. UTG, I raise the standard amount with AK, and he immediately re-raises me all-in. I'm not a fan of AK, but hard to lay it down in this situation, so I make the call, risking it all.
As I had hoped, he had an Ace as well, but with a Q kicker, and when a K hit on the flop, I felt pretty good about the situation, and I doubled-up again off of him, putting me about even with him. From there, I was very patient, picked my spots nicely, and by the final 3, I had at least 80% of all chips in play. It was just a matter of time... or so I thought.
That same guy managed who I'd double-up off of twice managed to eliminate the 3rd player, and after a few wins against me, he was the chip leader, but for some reason I never felt like I was losing control. I'm very comfortable heads-up, and I knew he was just on a bit of a rush. He was clearly not used to heads-up play, and from that point on, I dominated the match, until his all-in with KQ was beaten by my A-10.
Meanwhile, in the $6.60 game I was playing at the same time, I didn't have as much luck, and I was in severe danger of not even breaking the top 30 until this hand came along.
Holding K-Q, UTG, I make a small raise. It was a pretty weak move, as I was fairly short-stacked, and I knew that if someone pushed me all-in, I may have to call. Luckily, I got 3 callers, and already the pot total was almost equal to my chip count, so any decent flop would probably have me pushing the rest of my chips in. To call this flop decent is the understatement of the year.
The flop is K-K-Q, I flop the nuts and a full-house, almost impossible for any hand to beat at this point, so with 3 others still in the hand, I have to check and home for some action, but everyone else check too.
The turn is a J, I figure this should be enough now with 4 high card, 3 to a straight, 3 to a flush on board, that someone will make the first move. I was wrong, and checks all around bring the river card, which thankfully is a 10. Doesn't make 4 cards to the flush, but at least I know someone has to have an Ace, I should get pair here.
I bet half of what I have, and I'm immediately re-raised all-in, and that bet is immediately called by the next player. The last player folds, showing an ace, and making the very disciplined play. I show my KQ, and the other two hands auto-fold, more than tripling-up. The guy who called first claimed he had the Ace as well for the straight, the other guy says he had JJ for the lower full house.
I rode that one hand into the final table, but was completely card-dead, and finished 7th, collecting about $12 for my efforts. Still, in 2 simultaneous tournaments, I made more than 8x my investment in less than 4 hours. I've actually found that I play better poker when I play 2 tournies at the same time. It does make things harder to focus on understanding your opponents style of play, but I also find I play a more sound style of poker, and don't make dumb moves that I'm sometimes prone to doing.
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