The other day I played an MTT. The thing that makes this even semi-interesting is that I didn’t play on my account. With all my losses lately I had begun to wonder if I was a marked man. By this I mean whether I had so saturated the poker playing community with my articles, videos, and general presence for so long that I no longer held any surprises for anyone. So I decided to log onto my wife’s seldom used account and play anonymously.

For starters it was very liberating. Without the RPT logo above my name I felt like I was free to make all kinds of donkish plays – and I did. My favorite one had to be right before we made it into the money. I was abusing two short stacks at the table for a while already, even though my own stack was just barely above average. With about twenty players to bust until the money I raised 3x from the hijack with 67 off-suit and the button pushes for about twice what I had put in and then the big stacked big blind calls him and I figured I at least had live cards so I insta-called as well. The flop came T45 rainbow and the big blind bets about one fourth of the pot. Now I know that what I did here is far from proper poker, but when my push got the big blind to fold it just felt great. The fact that I missed my straight and lost the main pot didn’t even bother me at all as I ended up with close to the same amount of chips I had before the hand.

I suppose I should have cared that I might have bubbled and lost the measly $11 that my wife had left in her account, but I was carefree and fearless. Still, I must admit that it felt strangely good when I lost later on and got paid $42 for my trouble. So good in fact that I played on her account again the next day. This time I played a few low limit sit n go’s and then another MTT. When all was said and done that day I made another $55 and I was really getting a kick out of growing my new roll.

Well, when I woke up early the next day, which conveniently was a Saturday that I had no plans for, I decided to start early with the $10 rebuy at 8am. I didn’t want to lose much of my new money, so I resolved to only play for the $10. But we all know how long resolutions last, and when my suited AK lost an early race to a pair of eights, I found myself rebuying once. From then on my stack grew slowly but steadily into about 7k just before the break I got another suited AK and, as is often the case at the end of the rebuy hour, three short stacked players went all in. Even on my new account I am such a nit at heart that I almost folded, but my devil-may-care side won out and I called. When the cards turned up I was up against an AJ offsuit, a Q8 suited, and a pair of threes. An ace flopped and I went into the break with about 15k.

I continued to play a lot of unraised pots and fold most of my speculative hands to any decent size raise after the break. And, for a change, I hit more than a few flops and took a lot more chips from some more players. Once when the blinds were 75/150, I called in the hijack seat with a suited 45 and then called the 3x raise from the button. I wasn’t looking at the 2 to 1 odds the pot was giving me, I was looking at his 6k stack and thinking I could get it all with the right flop. Luck was with me again as the flop came A45. I led out for 800 and sure enough, he pushed with his AK. My two pair held, my stack grew, and he called me some unflattering things from the rail.

Then I did something really smart. I took my own advice and took my foot off the pedal for a while. I folded my next AK to a medium stack’s all in re-raise with what I thought was a medium to high pair. I also folded a pair of jacks a short time later to another all in bet that would have taken a third of my stack. Not that I was completely inactive. I stole a few blinds in position and won a nice pot when I called an obvious river bluff down with my pair of sixes. But I mostly stayed away from big confrontations, even if I thought I might have a small edge. My stack was big enough that I didn’t need to gamble that way.

But, when given the opportunity to risk a little for a potential big gain, I was more than willing to get in there. And I continued this same style through the late game. With less than fifty players left I got pocket sevens and there was an early big stacked 3x raiser and then an all in re-raise for only a few grand more so I called knowing that the reraiser had hamstrung the first raiser who could only flat call after me. Sure enough I hit my seven and more than doubled up. The funniest part was when we got all in on the flop and both opponents turned over pocket aces! I knew they had each other locked out and there was no way I could lose.

The short of the rest of it is that I finished in 4th place for more than $2,500. I was happy with the way I played and certainly happy with the payout. Believe it or not, I did have a fleeting moment when I was mad that my new score wouldn’t count for my PLB points. But when I thought about it I realized that was just my vanity talking. I should just be glad that I am having fun playing again and winning more to boot. Besides, if I really wanted anyone to know about it I could always write an article about how I turned $11 into $2,600 in just one week! ;o)

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