Just took 3rd place in a $25,000 guaranteed NLHE tournament on Noble Poker for a cool $2,500 (screenshot). I don’t know if I’m actually getting better at no-limit or that the players at Noble are that bad. This is two final tables I’ve made there in the last few weeks.

I should have took at least 2nd place because I was the chip leader for almost the entire time once we hit about 14 players. Once we got to the money, it was almost impossible to bust anyone. The short stacks could not lose a hand, no matter how bad their odds. This continued when I needed it to go the other way. We’re down to the final three and one player has less than 1/3 the chips of 2nd place. We couldn’t get rid of the guy and then I had a few chances. My Qc5c against his 9c7c and sure enough, he goes runner-runner for a straight. Then I have Qs8s against his pocket sixes and I don’t get any help. This put me in 3rd place. I could have easily had a 2-1 advantage on the 2nd place guy going to heads up. Then a hand or two later my Mrs. Slick runs into Big Slick and I’m out. I do have to say it was a lot of fun to play.

I’m learning a lot about no-limit lately. It’s just so much more fun than the grind of limit. I guess I’ll be taking another big payday from the bankroll after this win!

After work I decided to check out what kind of tournaments were running on the various sites. I made my way through each one and ended up at MultiPoker, which has been adding some guaranteed tournaments lately. A $500 guaranteed tourney caught my eye. It was a $10+1 with unlimited rebuys and 1 add-on. Along with me, only 19 others signed up.

Now here is something I really hate about the Party network sites…they start playing hand for hand 10 people before the money table. What’s worse is they even do it when only 3 places are paid in the tourney like this one. So basically we had to play hand for hand until we reached the final table. Talk about dragging out a tournament! It lasted 2 and a half hours. This is basically a 2 table SNG we’re talking about here, with the exception of the rebuys. In all, there were 11 rebuys and 16 add-ons, so MultiPoker was adding $30 to the prize pool. Because of the hand for hand bullshit by the time we got down to where some of the best poker is played, the blinds were so high that a raise meant all-in.

We finally got down to the final 3 and I’m in the money. I knew I was in control at this point even though I had half the chips of 2nd place and about 1/4 as many as the leader. This is basically a heads up SNG with one more person. I’ve been crushing heads up, so I felt very confident. They kept folding and I kept betting. I was soon in 2nd place. After a bit of back and forth I flopped top pair. I bet and I’m called. Turn is a rag, and I’m all-in due to the pot size. The player in 3rd calls with the nut flush draw, but the river doesn’t help. Within a hand or two I take the chip lead. Shortly after I flop top pair, so I go for the trap. He comes out with a minimum bet, so I triple it. He goes into the tank and then goes all-in. I’ve got him. He turns over Q8 for a bluff and my K3 is good.

I re-bought right at the end of the rebuy period and also did the add-on. Turned $33 into $250. Too bad the tournament took twice as long as it should have.