What did I tell you guys about clown-punching and vision?!?  Anyway, you will never guess what just happened...

I think hell must've frozen over, the fat lady has sung and the cows have come home because... I just won my first tournament!!!  Unfortunately, it wasn't FTOPs - it was a dinky one that I entered after my KK < AQ in FTOPs #1.  But hey!  Beggars can't be choosers.  $6K is still money - and I must've knocked out almost 10 people, so I got another $150 or so in knock-out bonuses.

I think I only needed one massive suckout, and it happened at the final table.  I opened QTo from MP2/CO and the SB (fishy looking guy) min 3bet me, so I had to call.  Anyway, the flop was Qx5, so I minraised his cbet, and when he clicked it back, I just shipped (because I'm never folding TP to a fish).  Turns out he had Q5o (two pair - nice min 3bet OOP douche!), and I hit my T on the river.  That hand effectively gave me the chip lead.  It feels so awesome to be the suckout-er instead of the suckout-ee for a change.  Most of my all-ins in the tourney were where I was the favorite, so it actually went by fairly smoothly.

To be honest, I was shocked at how bad the final table play was - it was much worse than any single table tournament I had ever played.  When it got 3 handed, I was stealing like 70% (one guy kept folding his BB to my SB raise), that guy stole 25% and the other guy just kept limping on the button and SB.  So I was saying to myself, "I'm seriously going to jump out the window if I don't win this."  Fortunately for my landscaper and Mrs. Fly (who would have to clean up the mess), I won!

It may just be sample size, but I feel like I'm playing much better at MTTs (later post).  The other tourney I entered yesterday, I had an above avg chip stack and got in QQ vs A8s on a 832r flop, and he runner-runnered the flush to bust me.  But I'm definitely feeling more comfortable in the middle stages of a tourney, and I was always decent at STTs (final tables), so I feel like I'm putting things together.  Of course, it always helps to run good - in the MTT I won, I never went thru a prolonged period of dead cards.  Altho I did 3bet a few times with ATC when I thought I needed to.  But to keep things in perspective, this was a relatively minor tourney at an off-peak hour, so I expect better competition in the big ones.

This more than makes up for the cash game drubbing I continue to take (later post).