Went to my local, Broadway, for one of their regular freezeouts. I know almost everyone there, most of them know me and, having played there frequently for the last five years, I have stored up a lot of player information. I know who the fish are, always hope to be sitting on the calling station’s table and I know the rocks who only play one hand per level. On the flip side everyone more or less knows that I play solid and usually get it in good.

Tourney is about to start, I sit down in Seat 1, plug in my ipod and look around the table. One or two unknown faces but pleased to see I’ve got a couple of fish, one aggressive maniac and a calling station who are all going to (inevitably) give me their chips. I don’t know where my revelation came from, but a voice inside my head asked me why I wasn’t going to take them too. Equipped with a determination to be more aggressive, I sit back for a couple of hands just to see what the ’unknowns’ were up to.

My man in seat 6 seemed to be trying to be aggressive preflop but was actually making weak raises out of position with mid range hands. He then overplayed his hands on the flop and succeeded in  picking up a few small pots. I took note of his range and decided it was time to exploit this wannabe Gus Hansen. Two seats away from him was my calling station, and in seat 9 is a seasoned regular who I still haven’t quite sussed out.

Early on I pick up AA in late position, there is an early raise, I min raise, he folds, I show. The same happens a few hands later and I show AA again. Now I’ve made my betting patterns known it’s time to go to work. Mr CS limps utg, I raise in mid position with 9 10 suited and CS calls. Flop comes a very healthy J Q 3. He checks I put a teaser bet in, he calls. The turn comes another J. He checks, I check. The river is a 3. Once again, he checks and I fire in a (slightly less than) pot bet. He looks at his cards, sighs and folds. I proudly flip over my 10 high and stack my chips.

A little later on I flat call a raise from Mr Hansen along with 4 other players. I am first to act and on a K J 8 board I check trap with my AK – except my plan was foiled because everyone else checks too. Sigh. The turn comes a 5 and now I put in a 2/3 of pot bet. Everyone folds except Gus. He has this really creepy way of staring at me when I am making action – maybe it’s Hellmuth he really wants to be and he’s reading my soul. The river comes a 10 and I decide to let the guy hang himself, so I check. He fires a really small bet, accompanied by a weird twitch in the corner of his mouth and I flat call. He flips J 10 off. NH WP.

Had a bit of a rollercoaster after that and at the first break I have 1,900 chips from a starting stack of 6,000. When we come back the local agressive bluffer moves to the table. He has a relatively small stack and after a couple of standard hands, I have got my stack up to 5k. Blinds are now 200/400. I notice in a hand that he is blind raising in early position. I decide that if he does it the next hand that I am going to blind reraise all in (if passed to me). The cards are dealt and I dip my head ‘looking for a tune’ whilst keeping an eye on what he does. Sure enough he min raises utg without even looking at his cards. UTG +1 flat calls and I push all my chips over the line. Folds round to him, he looks at his cards and insta mucks. UTG+1 (Mr hard to read) also folds. I look at my cards and as it turns out am able to table 88.

I decide I like this irresponsible, erratic play and give it one more go. Two hands later I blind raise and Mr blind raiser gets his chips in while Mr HTR reshoves. Urgh, I know I have pot committed myself and shouldn’t even look at my cards, but I do. Heart in boots, I push my chips over the line and turn over my K 6 off. Short stack has 8d2d and HTR has 99. Another player shows the KQ that he folded – marvellous, thanks for that! Anyway the flop comes 2 K 6. I hold my breath, waiting for the 9 or 2 to drop, but no, I triple up, counting my healthy stack, while unable to make eye contact with anyone else at the table.

Much later into the tournament when we are down to the last 30 or so players, comes the most significant hand of my night and a good example of what I had really hoped to achieve at the beginning of the night. There are a couple of new players to the table and I am in the small blind (I have about 35k now blinds 500/800 ante 100). I have Ad2c. The big blind is in, as is the UTG limper. The flop comes Kc 2d 8d. I check and instantly decide that if either of them bet I am going to flat call and play my hand as if I have the nuts if a diamond comes on the turn. It’s quite relevant to the hand that I have predetermined what my action is going to be at each stage of the betting. UTG bets 2.5k and I call. The bb passes. My plan springs into action when the turn brings the Qd. I check and UTG bets 3.5k. I think for a moment and reraise him to 8.5k. He goes into the tank for a good minute or two, looking at his stack, frowning, looks at me, looks at his stack again, and eventually moves all in for a total of 24k.

Now what?

I hadn’t got this far in my action plan. I counted my stack and the pot and realised a) I had (borderline) pot committed myself with the reraise and b) I wanted to go to a Final Table with chips rather than the 10 bbs I usually ended up there with. That little voice popped up and said ‘if you wanna play with the boys, you gotta grow some balls’. I pushed my chips over the line and turned over my pair of 2s with the nuts flush draw. The other guy looked delighted and showed Kd 10d. I felt SO sorry for him as the colour drained from his face when the 6d came on the river. The whole table was in shock – me included!! I apologised to him profusely and after he calmed down I explained to him I’d been making a play and that I thought he could lay down a smaller flush. He was very gracious in telling me that I had just given him his worst bad beat ever.

I probably did him a favour – as half an hour later he was a good few 100 up on the cash game.

So I went to the last two tables as chip leader. The bubble was epic. It went on and on and on. I have never seen such poor play at this stage in a tournament. The sb and bb were folding to the small stacks who were shoving for two blinds or less!?!!? Eventually I got so tired of the blinds being passed around the table, that if noone else was going to take them out then I would start trying to pick them off. Called a shove with 86o vs A 10. 8 on flop, A on river. Called another with 42o vs A7o flopped a 4 – but so did the bb with a better kicker. Eventually when I couldn’t see a Final Table happening before 4am I pushed with Jc7c and was put out of my misery by the button who had KK.

For the first time I wasn’t disappointed at making it so far without cashing. I’ve only detailed a couple of hands, but this tournament was worth every hand and hour played purely for how much I learnt.

Looks like I will be needing a regular back, sack and crack!