Poker Stars Caribbean Adventure Satellite

Golden West Casino
Buy-In: $175
Chips: 10k
Blinds: 30 Minutes

Now this is my kind of tournament! Deep stack, long blinds, and a hefty prize. There were 90 entrants, half of the field won their way into it, as did myself. Right before we hear "shuffle up and deal" they announce Humberto Brenes will be playing in todays tournament, and you get a free seat at the Venetian deep-stack tournament in February for eliminating him.

As far as my table appeared it was a lot of the local sharks, a couple decent players, two fairly bad players, and myself. Within the first hour I had some excellent reads on two players. One player in particular, seated at seat 4, had a tell that was a dead giveaway. He always held one hand over his cards with his fingers surrounding each corner, and the closer they were to the bet line, the weaker his hand was, the closer it was to his body, the stronger. I figured he did this unknowingly, kept his hand close to the bet line in order to quickly muck his garbage if one were to raise. By the third blind (hour and a half of playing) I was chip leader, especially after scooping a stack with quad aces.

I kept playing small ball poker from there, I did a good job of not risking too much of my stack in unnecessary hands. At about the 10th level, they break a table and sit a new player at seat 10. From the get go I had a bad feeling about him, he sat down with about as many chips as I had, and I noticed he was calling almost every hand to see a flop, "I have to take advantage of this" I thought. In the BB I am dealt AK, I raise he calls, flop misses me, he bets 10 BB, I fold. Next hand I get dealt AK once again, I make it 4 BB, and once again he calls, flop misses me, I take a stab at it and he re-raises I muck my hand face up (on accident).

At this point I am feeling annoyed, is he playing position on me? Am I playing too tight around him? So I figure next time I have okay hand, and position on him I planned to expose his constant bluffing. I get dealt A9 on the button. I raise 8 BB (knowing he was going to be the only one who called) which he did. Flop misses me 2 - 6 - 8 rainbow. He opens for 3 BB, I smell something funny here, I then re-raise him 10 BB. He takes about a minute to call, I know what to do now, I taste blood in the water. As the turn comes I don't even look at the card, I just stare at him, he looks worried as he checks it to me, I notice the turn is a 9, I'm in better shape now,  I open for 5 BB just to confuse him even further, he calls, now I get nervous. "What in the world can he be holding?" I ponder. His betting pattern makes no sense, I come to the conclusion it must be a draw. River is a King and I shove , he then says "Aww crap!" and seems worried about the K on the river. He then says , "Well if you got me, you got me but I have to call" and turns over K2o. That's right, K2 off-suit. He risked his entire tournament life not only on a terrible hand, but bottom pair.

Of course I get heated and leave not wanting to make eye contact. I still can't believe I am getting eliminated from almost every tournament by amateurs with good luck.