Well this has been a busy weekend so I haven't had a chance to talk about my CPT experience yesterday. In a word ... frustrating. The level of play was definitely stronger than at the satellite, which was to be expected. That being said, I didn't feel all that uncomfortable. The trouble was, I just couldn't catch any cards. Fairly early in the tourney, I played KQo in early position, got a single caller from the player to my left. Flop is ten high and pretty dry. I continuation bet and get called. Turn is a queen giving me top pair. I make a pot sized bet and get called. River is a blank, but I'm not too happy with the call so I check intending to call a small bet. He checks behind and shows me ... KK?? Huh. He missed a value bet.

After winning a couple small pots (a raise collects the blinds and a walk in the big blind... weee!), I get dealt 85o in the big blind. There's a min-raise, followed by a couple callers so I call in the big blind getting 7 to 1 immediate pot odds. I flop 88Q. I check, to the aggressive player on my left who bets a small amount. The other players fold and I smooth call. I check the turn (a ten, if I remember correctly) intending to check raise (this was a mistake I think). He checks behind. The river is a deuce, finishing a 3-flush on the board. I make a pot size bet and get raised ... uhoh. I think for awhile, but call and he shows me ... 22. Hrm. I think I may have played that hand badly ...

The dinner break was almost upon us so I limped my way into dinner with 6600 in chips (after starting with 10K). The blinds after the break were going to be 150/300 with 25 antes. Not something to immediately be concerned about, but certainly getting significant for my stack. When I got back from dinner I just couldn't get any hands. The couple of times I picked up hands I didn't like the situation I was in - a raiser from early position seemed to be the rule when I looked at the couple decent hands I saw (and by decent, I mean KQo and QTo). Finally, with my chip stack dwindling to 5500 or so, I got moved from my initial table and got seated at another just in time to get the big blind again (now at 400 chips). A few hands later, I see an open limper, and folds around to me in the cutoff. I decided to push with A9s, hoping to just pick the pot up because I needed to try and reverse my downward trend. I didn't like being so tight as I'd been playing so far, but I didn't really want a lot of action with my shortstack. Anyways, I get called by the open limper who has JJ and I whiff on the flop. *sigh*.

So my day was pretty frustrating. The best hands I saw all day were: 44, ATs, and KQo (twice). Other than that, I certainly remember seeing Q2o, 93o, and 94o a lot more than I cared to. Sometimes, variance sucks.

Still, it was good to be back in the casino playing a big tournament. That was my 3rd big CPT event. Those of you who know me might recall that I finished 6th in the first $500 CPT event I played in. I entirely realize that that first time was a lot of luck combined with a little insight that Darse helped me with. But mostly the whole ride was a huge upswing in variance which is the only reason why I made it so far. Unfortunately for me, I couldn't put in a repeat performance this time. It would've been nice, the top prize at this tourney was $51K. Oh well - there'll be a next time I'm sure!

Heraldk