BotPower

I entered into a $30 5,000 starting poker chip stack event on cake the other day. The multi-table events on cake are much smaller than other poker sites, which make winning more tangible, but the payouts a bit smaller. There were only 48 entrants in this poker online tournament. So, it basically played like a 45-person sit and go. The difference was that we started with 5,000 chips instead of 1500 and the blinds were 15 minutes long. I took this chance to prove that I could destroy tournament players with a deep stack. The first hand I raised to 80 (blinds 15/30) with Qs-Js. I was reraised to 165 and called. I flopped the flush, with an opened ended straight flush draw. I checked in early position and the let aggressor bet. He bet about 250. I had the flush, but I also figured that if this guy at least had a flush draw, I could get a lot of money out of him. I raised to 800. He then raised me 1400 or so. I think if he had the nut flush he would have flat called my bet and hoped that I led out on the turn. So, pretty confident that I had him beat and also that he was willing to come along for the ride, I went all-in and he called. He had AA with the ace of spades and I faded the outs (2 of which I was blocking with my straight flush draw and 2 more with my made flush). Now, with 10,000 chips, I was super aggressive. To my pleasure, I was also hitting some flops and making some draws. I played really well and maintained a top 3 chip-stack all the way to the final table. 7 places paid and I almost bubbled. I doubled up a short stack, I missed a bunch of flops and draws, and lost all of my continuation bets. The final table went terribly for me. I could have hunkered down and played really tight, but once the bubble burst, I shoved with A-10 over a preflop raise. He called and showed AQ and I was out in 7th for a min cash. If I wanted to inch up the pay scale, I could certainly have played a lot fewer hands. Instead, I played aggressively and the cards did not fall my way.