Email I sent to my investors after day one in AC

Played event one. Kept running into big hands early but kept surviving. Ran into a set with top two pair and lost a good portion of my stack. Later a guy caught a set on the turn after airballing the flop and calling a big bet from me. A couple of hands later, despite being priced out the same guy chased his flush and got there on the river (and thankfully was dumb enough to not be able to bet it for value). Suddenly was down to 3k from a starting stack of 10k but feeling good about still being in the tournament.

Grinded. Got over starting stack with half the field gone by picking spots and exploiting weakness. Then started to get short again and was looking for spots to push. Of course they break my table where my image was great and I was about to start to exploit it again. New table had a lot of chips and action but I couldn't catch a playable hand for the first few orbits and the blinds and antes were catching up.

Crazy asian old guy was the talk of the table raising anything and getting there. In the BB, I have 8 to 10 BBs left and looking to get it in. Old crazy dude raises 3x . A player who is a teaching pro, and pulling the Nascar driver look with the website on hat and hoodie kind of gave me a weird look and just flatted. I put him on a big hand and think he's hoping I shove any two when its get to me. Then two more callers get in the hand.

With the pot odds, I'm going to shove a wide range of hands here, that aren't likely to be dominated. I don't want to play Ax or Kx but I'm hoping for some suited connectors. I look at J9 suited which is almost perfect for that. I consider what the teaching pro has and I eliminate AA or KK or QQ as I think he would have chose to play a bigger pot with the Asian old guy and 3bet him and not cared about my 10bbs. I honed in on AK. Other hands like middle pairs just wouldn't be making that play. Had to be AK. I'd be 40% dog if right, but shoving would likely get me heads up making 3 to 4 to 1 on my money and a great spot to gamble.

I shove. Old Asian guy calls (bonus). Teaching pro, as I expected wasn't having any of that. He came over the top, the other two callers got out of the way and the old asian guy folded after tanking forever (with garbage). Sure enough getting almost 4 to 1 on my money going to the flop vs. Ak o/s. I flop flush draw and open ended. River a 9 to win with a pair. Fun hand. I think the pro played it great, getting the same return on his money with 60% chance to scoop too. I got lucky on that one. Suddenly, I have chips and can hurt people.

Also, as a tight player I have the great advantage of the idiots at the table thinking I'm a dumbass looking to shove in a mulit-way pot with just J9 who don't understand the logic behind why I did what I did. A couple of hands later I get my first big pair of the tournament QQ.

 

Sweet. A.C. reg from early position raises.

He's one of the dumbasses.

When it gets to me I contemplate what to do. Do I flat, hope the Asian behind me does the raising and get it in. I figure my image is perfect enough to actually 3bet the guy and he might even overshove pre... which I was going to call. He's not going to give me credit for QQ. I have a read of weakness on his part as the bet size just seemed like he didn't want a call. I pop it pretty good to make it look like a steal and go with my image of being crazy. He eyeballs me and decides to call (drat! I say).

Flop is gin. Q98. Top set. I know there is zero chance this guy has J10. He insta-shoves and just radiates weakness. I would have called him if I had bottom pair. Of course, I almost beat him into the pot, accidentally channeling Phil Hellmuth by knocking over my chips in my surprise of this guy trying to giftwrap me a huge pot. He barely had my stack covered. He's devastated with the call, even worse when he sees I did the impossible and actually had a hand in that spot. He's got AJ off suit. Says something about drawing dead or his ace being dead. I spy the gutter ball and cringe a bit.

I fade the turn and he hits the 10 on the river and screams emphatically and stares at me like I was the one that hit a miracle for a big pot. Turrible. I say nice hand, somehow omiting any trace of sarcasm. If my hand holds... we'd already have our first cash in tournament one. Oh well, getting ready for tournament two. Thanks for the support.