I'm positive at MTTs!!!

So, yesterday was your typical Sunday where I go to the office as early as possible to play as much as I can. This particular Sunday I didn't go super early cause I've been playing until 2:00 a.m. all week long, so waking up before noon is out of the question. Not that I missed that much anyway, all the regulars I know where playing... And I'm not super excited to be the 6th person joining a game with 5 regulars waiting... Not only that, but the god of hyper-turbos jorj95 was playing the $74s so I'd rather stay away from those...

But since I needed the VPPs (let's not forget that I am on the hunt for Supernova), I opened some $37s and started playing. Around 13:45 I stopped opening tables cause the $109 NL Hold'em [$15k Gtd] was starting at 14:00. I removed those satellites from my TableNinja filters, unregistered from the tournament and went on playing my hypers... Of course the inevitable happened. I forgot to unregister from the satellites that TableNinja put me in before 13:45. It seems like one of them took a bit longer to start, so by the time I was done with it, it took me straight to my seat in the main event. *Sighs* Story of my life!

Frustrated that I was going to have to play yet another MTT, one that I had actually been prudent enough to remove from my filters, I put the table in the corner of my screen and focused on my hypers. Early on, however, I got some premium hands in the MTT and doubled up. When I checked the lobby, I saw to my surprise that I was first (!) in the rankings. I still paid little attention to it, cause the tournament had something like 300 players and late registration was still open so more could follow.

I went on playing, and was still hanging on after registration closed. Not only was I hanging on, but I don't think I ever dropped lower than 13th place. Time was going by though and I was starting to feel more and more tired. As you know, I normally do two-hour sessions and then have a 30 minutes break. MTTs only have a five minutes break every hour so... That threw me out of my routine by quite a bit. I was planning to go grab lunch from outside but that was no longer possible. Good thing I had some leftover soup in the fridge!

I didn't know what to do during my five minutes break... Go to the bathroom, make a coffee to keep me awake or close my eyes for a while to get that much desired rest? I was talking with André on gmail chat from time to time... He was going running, then he was back from running and was going to take a shower, then he was going to prepare lunch, then he was having lunch and so on... And aaaaaaaall that time I was there playing. Boy, MTTs are so annoying! Don't even get me started on why I don't like playing MTTs, I've already made a detailed post on the subject!

Anyway, the thing that really bothered me was that I had already spent quite some time on that tournament and I would feel awful to walk away empty handed. Which, considering my past experience in MTTs was a highly probable future. I was constantly checking how many players were left so that I at least make it in the money and it always seemed soooooooo far away! To make matters worse, since I wasn't getting my half-hour breaks I was feeling too tired to play the hypers at some point so I stopped playing them and only left the MTT open, thinking something like "Okay, I'm gonna lose this one, make a break and then go back to the hypers!"

Of course, life has a funny way of messing up our plans. In this case, the amount of good hands I was getting was ridiculous. And no, I'm not overreacting. It seemed like luck was making it up to me for all the previous MTTs I've been in... I remember one where I lost without ever getting a glimpse of a halfway decent hand. And this Sunday it was my payback time. Not only did I double up early on, but just when I was determined to play tight to make it into the money (that's really all I was hoping for), I would get Aces or Kings and be forced to go for all or nothing. Like, to give you an example at some point I was up against another player's all-in. I called with my AQs and felt relieved when he revealed AQo. We would be splitting the pot, so huuuuufffff, I could breathe again for not having to flip with a pair or be up against AK. I didn't even realize what was happening when I saw all the chips coming my way. I had made a flush! You know the expression "Better lucky than good"? They made it for me playing the MTT last Sunday. That crazy!

The bubble did burst at some point, and I was nowhere near going bust. Actually most of the time I was the chipleader at my table. André started taking more interest in what was happening as the tournament was closing in to the last two tables and he started cheering for me on his facebook page which was a nice twist of events since normally I'm the one that does that kind of stuff... Oh, by the way thanks to everyone who showed their support! I really appreciate it you guys! :D

I made it to the final two tables, and when it looked like they would soon be merged into one I did the unthinkable: I turned my chat on!!! As soon as we got into the final table, I typed "chop?" in the chat box. Nobody replied though... Don't get me wrong, I was actually the chipleader (although you cannot see two players' stacks below, I did have the chiplead at that point). I just wanted to get a deal cause I was super happy to make it in the money and then the final table and I have a very good notion of how far my skills go when MTTs are concerned.

Anyway, since everyone ignored my chop offer we just kept on playing. One player down, then another one, then another one... We were down to four people! Then came the decisive hand of the tournament... I raised with pocket 4s and the player on my left shoved... I called, and he showed 2s. I didn't have time to breathe before the flop came with a 2 in the middle... He hit his set, and even though I was still alive that hand crippled me. On the positive side, I was down to 11BB after that so it was my field all over again... Hyper-turbo style so that I go down in glory! Heheh! At least towards the end I'm 100% confident of my game!

It seems that some people did not take losing quite as nicely though. One of my opponents that I eliminated from the final table wished good luck to two of the other players (he acutally wrote gl X and gl Y) and ignored all the rest of us that were still playing. He also remained silent when I wrote "gg", but whatever! I'm not going to teach people good sportsmanship and I have my chat off most of the times anyway so I never bother with this kind of thing. Plus, I'm very happy with the way I played considering what I know and that MTTs are not by any means my field. I also recognize that I've had a very generous amount of luck which is why I didn't really sweat it with the 44 vs 22 suck-out. All is well that ends well and I got a nice $3024 prize to celebrate!

And I'm sorry if you have seen this kind of thing before, but to the eyes of the sng player this graph is so unreal that I had to share:

Straight line up? Haha, that doesn't happen! It makes the hypers progress look like I was fooling around at the tables or something! Epic! And finally, one last graph we need to take a look at: my lifetime MTTs graph.

Graph for more than 15 players

That's $565 positive! Yeayyyy!!! I think it's important to have it here for the record cause with the bad habit I have of forgetting to unregister from main tournaments I can't say that it will stay positive for long... Oh, and since the above graph is including some small MTTs, I'll also put the lifetime graph of the bigger ones with more than 180 players (that's were I'm doing all the damage these days anyway):

Graph for 180 players and above

In this one I'm $1286 positive which makes me wonder... When exactly have I been playing small MTTs and lost money at them? Must have been in another lifetime or something, or I have completely erased from my memory everything MTT related cause I really don't remember anything about the crime...

Anyway, I think that's enough graphs and numbers for today. Moving on to more serious questions... What to do with the prize money? Talonchick had a great idea of me going shopping (oh, thanx Adrienne for the support at the tourney!). Not that it didn't cross my mind, it did, but eventually I've decided that it's much better to leave the money in my account. I think my bankroll appreciates it more than my wardrobe would. Especially now that I'm going for Supernova and a downswing could mean not making it. Speaking of, this was a good week as far as points are concerned and I'm happy to say I'm on schedule:

After all the MTT craziness I immediately hit the mall to grab dinner. I had been playing for six hours which I'm not at all used to and I felt like eating something more consistent than a soup. And yeah, I did say that I wouldn't spend my prize shopping around like crazy, which we all know I would love to do, but I didn't say I wouldn't buy anything. I am a woman after all! Plus, what I did buy I really needed!

- A pair of the cutest fuzzy socks ever made! Cause I actually didn't have any fuzzy socks and it's cold and the heating at our place has been pulling some tricks on us lately and who wants cold feet in December? Plus did I mention they're super cute?

- A night mask with the eyes of an owl! Because sometimes André is at the office with me and he's working while I want to take a nap. And I can't take a nap with all the lights on! Plus, one can never have too many cute thingies! :P

That's all for now! See you soon with an update about my Supernova chase!

P.S.: I started writing this on Monday night but it turned out to be one of my beloved humongous posts... So I'm posting it after midnight and it will go with a Tuesday date. Just wanted to clear that out so that you don't get confused when I'm referring to Sunday as "yesterday". Cheers!

P.S.2: Now that I said cheers, I remembered, after I won the moneys at the MTT, André showed up at the office with some snacks and Porto wine to celebrate! Which makes me think... Hmm, maybe I should final table more often, this is cooooooool! :D