Thank god for MTTs

So I eventually managed to arrest the slide in my online bankrolls in August, where I made a total profit of about $73. That brought to an end the 4 month run of red end of month numbers. September was heading for another small down month, until yesterday. I had briefly watched a couple of the daily $109 O8 MTTs on PokerStars and to be honest, did not think the standard was very high. I got home too late to even consider the WCOOP O8, but the 2+2 thread about it inspired me to have a look and see if it was running. I registered with 4 minutes to spare and soon found myself on the chip leaders table with my 20BB. 15 minute blinds are quite different to the turbo STTs I normally play and I was able to wait for a semi decent opportunity with AKKT to limp from the button. A K on the flop with 2 hi cards and I was 3 way, the turn 8 was just about the best card in the pack for me as both my opponents had an 8 each for 2 pair, and I went on to treble up to about 9th spot.

After that I played solid, but aggressively and stayed in the the top 10 until about 20 left, when I slipped back into the pack after raising too much out of position pre and having to fold a missed flop. Not to worry, getting all in preflop with A3xx vs AA2x meant I doubled up with a scoop flush and back into contention. Approaching the bubble I was bouncing around on 10-15BBs for ages in the bottom 3 chip stacks. But, I sneaked through the final table bubble and with a full ring I was able to pick my spots to race carefully. Eventually I managed to get up to 3rd with 6 left and with A235 on a 34JQ board decided to race against the 2nd place stack for the chip lead. The river Q gave him his Q4 full house and I was out pocketing $520 for my 6th place. Against the same opponent I would probably make the call again, since I read him correctly for hi only draw and I still had a 35% chance of taking the hi as well as 50% of getting the lo.

Overall thought that the standard improved towards the FT, but I was more aggressive than anyone else on the final table. I guess that was what did for me in the end, but if I had won that race I would have been CL by a good margin and would have been confident of making it to heads up quite easily.

If I could, I suppose I should play MTTs full time, but they just take too long to fit in around work and family. Anyway, back in a few months for another update.

September results: +$374 so far.