AQ = Nuts

"Don't use up all your run good."
--F-Train

Indeed.

Normally, I define "run good" as "not getting horribly sucked out upon," since I like to think I get my money in ahead most of the time. That was the case for the most part last night in my 4th place finish in the $28K Guarantee, but I certainly benefited from one Luckbox Moment.

We were about three hours in and my stack was dwindling, trying my vaunted patience. There was a raise and a call in front of me, the former by a huge stack, the latter by a Swede who'd been playing a ton of pots. I had AQ on the button and went ahead and shoved, trying to take it. I was more worried about the raiser than the caller.

I was wrong. The Swede flat called with Aces ("fucking Swedes"). I was already on my way to bed on the ten-high flop, but the King turn and Jack river had other ideas. Suddenly, I had a top 20 stack and new life.

(You know, I did this similar thing in a similar situation late in the WPBT Winter Classic. I raised with AQ, Al flat-called and F-Train popped it. As I did last night, I read Al's flat call as weakness (and F-Train? Well, he and I have been in this spot before. I figured him for a medium pair and I'm willing to race at that point, with that structure) and pushed, somehow getting Al to fold AK. F-Train had AQ and we chopped it up as Al walked away in disgust, but rest assured, we gleefully let him know a king flopped. Clearly, these are bad plays by me, but Hey! they worked out. Results-based analysis rules.)

Anyways, long story short, I played out of my head after that, but fell short. I did a good job picking my spots at the final table, ritually abusing the guy on my right and winning a good pit with Q9s after a re-raise (the hand that spawned the quote at the top of this post). Considering my good fortune, I could scarcely be upset when, down to four, my AK was out-flopped by AQ (oh irony, you sonofabitch), even though that pot gives me the chip lead by 400K or so with three left AND those jackholes chopped three ways after my subsequent elimination for $4K apiece with an extra grand to the winner.

I'm over it. Really.

So that was good practice for Commerce tomorrow, though I don't think an opponent who re-raises me pre-flop will check on every subsequent street (as in the Q9s hand). No, that's not really how they do it at Commerce. The paycheck pumped up my bankroll nicely, even if I promised Emet I'd donate half the winnings to the Major Appliance Fund, and my ROI for 2010 is 525%.

Ship. That.

I'll be certain to Twitter the tourney tomorrow for those of you who can't get enough of chip counts. Let's hope some of that run good remains.