Continuing the Beau Nightly at the Southern Poker Championship...

Things had changed quite drastically and I was enjoying it. Sometimes when you feel like you've been pounded into submission in say a Texas Holdem online tournament and then you just start winning every coin race and in a couple of laps you are back to where you started, well that's how I felt. It's a good thing. Having life when you thought you were dead usually makes you a lot more grateful to be alive.

That's Holdem poker for you. Even with all that being said, I still had some work with barely more than my starting stack, but I was in the 15 BB range. Now, I could shove over a limp or small raise and have fold equity. The good player who won the massive pot opened again, he had really started to open his range and lead into a lot of pots. I looked at KQ from the button and saw likely folds in the blinds and decided to shove. ...I thought I had fold equity.

The Blinds folded and then the good player thought for a while. I looked at his chip stack and saw he had way too much to find a fold even if he was opening with garbage. Perhaps, he might want to save face and not show that hand and could fold but it wasn’t to be. He reluctantly called with A10 thinking he might be crushed.

Nope. You know what though, I felt like the guy who gets in bad but was going to win the hand. Sho' nuff... Spa-dow! But... King ball on the flop, and I was off and running.

Sometimes when you scoop a lot of pots, even if you are showing down second best hand preflop, I think people just subconsciously accord you the same respect as if you are playing tight. Fear of the winner sets in. I hit the gas and quickly amassed some chips. Throughout the tournament I never had a pocket pair. Yes, not once. Well once when we were on the money bubble, but I’ll get to that. Before that, I certainly never got AA, KK, QQ, though I did suggest that, after people laid down and I don’t remember any other pair being in my hand.

Basically, this tournament became a bit of a freeroll for me because I was crippled twice, and recovered from a missed giant pot. After that just about every pot I scooped was a bluff or semi-bluff. C-bets were working, shoving on shorties was working, and I kept pulling in chips without getting called. At some point me and the other two good players, Baton Rouge, and the table-chip leader came to a game flow understanding (I think) and didn’t play hands with each other. We just picked on the other seats and stockpiled chips.

I will say that I three-bet the guy not from Baton Rouge a few times including when we switched tables and I was put immediately on his left. I just started to have a sense of when he was rasing out of line and he found folds. It was a good spot for me as I could tighten up and drag fewer pots but bigger pots.

I was literally repopping with hands like 10-4 o/s, J-3, 34 suited and taking pots down. I mixed it up with this nice older lady later who definitely relied on her reads to make a decisions. A guy opened she called and from the button I looked at A4 suited. I called. Flop came AK4. First guy checked she bet and action was to me. I shoved.

The guy folded and she went into the tank. She kept trying to decide whether or not to call. I went full on weakness acting mode as she studied me, sloppily drinking my water, gulping big swallows, and I could tell I was motivating a call. Then I had this weird premonition or feeling or something. Maybe it was all those times I coaxed people into calls and it didn't work out. Suddenly, I wanted to change course... manipulate her out of a call.