One of our meetup members was having a tourney tonight so I figured what the heck and decided to go play in it.  $30 buy in with rebuys and sat 9 players.  I started off the tourney cautiously, seeing what type of opponents I had to contend with.  Pick up a few pots here and there, mostly uncontested ones.  Then this hand came up.  After a couple of limpers, mp raises 3 bets, and I called with Kd8d on the button and the limpers call.  Flop 788, two hearts.  EP leads out for about 1/2 the pot, folds to me and I bump it 4 bets.  After some deliberation, ep calls.  At this point, I felt my hand was good.  I ruled out 77 and I think A8 would have RR me in that spot, given what I had committed and what I had behind.  I felt my opponent was on a flush draw (but not the nut draw) but straight draw was also possible.  Turn 6, non heart.  EP leads out into the pot again.  I was a little confused by the bet.  910 could make sense but I still felt it was unlikely.  Either way, I felt I would have to pay off 910 and pushed AI, about 80% pot bet.  My opponent thought longer and reluctantly calls.  River hit 5 and my opponent had 9c7c.  Ouch!  Rebuy TK!

Reloaded and back in business!  Or so I thought.  No hands won and hero decided to make a move with 33 and ran into AA.  Smart, very smart.

Well, lets reload again and see what happens.  This time, I was really able to pick my spots well.  I lost KK vs AA but didn't do too much to my stack.  I did a lot of raising when it was limped or folded to me and was able to win many uncontested pots.  Once it got down to to 4/5 handed, my immediate right was the runaway chipleader which made it a little difficult to play my game.  He started to play his big stack and would make it 5 - 7 bets when he raised.  Since I'm not playing to make the money, a few times I had to make a stand and push back with nothing before my stack dwindled.  Luckily, I picked the right spots and was never called.  I finally went busto when I pushed with 10 6 on a flop of 4 5 7 and was called by the chip leader Q 7.  I couldn't get lucky and I was out in 3rd.

Overall, I was happy with my play.  It would have taken some major luck to win this tournament, given the deficit I was facing once it got 3 handed.  I bet the chip leader had over 70% of the chips.  Winning that last would have started helped start the path in the right direction but it wasn't meant to be. 

We played a little short handed cash game afterwards but not much to report there as I can't remember.  Until next time!

TK