[Percula]

OK, well three chips and a chair...

Live MTT $30 rebuy, down to ~35 players, ten places pay, blinds are very aggressive at 15min levels. My table is playing tight except for one old guy (80+) that is playing just about every hand raised PF or not and showing down crap, getting lucky and hitting, missing and varying his stack wildly. Play a hand against him, and he puts a bad beat on me, my 22 against his A2 on a QA2 flop that ended up QA2A3.

I am down to 700, 2 (100) and 1 (500) chip. Blinds are 750/1500/100. I am announce I am AI in the dark. Three way action, and flip up J9o for two pair, MHIG. I am UTG now and dont have enough to pay the SB, so again I am AI in the dark. Four way action this time and turn over Q9o for a striaght, MHIG! In the BB now and the table folds to me, scared of the luck box, LOL. In the SB now, again eveyone folds to me, I push in the dark, BB calls, my KK is good LOL. I am better shape, but still have a long way to go...

My table breaks as I get the button and I draw the BB on the next table. One guy from my last comes with me and is the button, same guy that I got with the KK. He is talking about my come back and luck. Guy in CO with a massive stack, must have been chip leader laughs and says "luck only last so long". When the hand is delt it quickly folds to him, he looks down the table and wants to see my stack, smiles and says AI. Guy on the button says "you dont want to mess with the luck box", and I push with 88 and set my 8's against his 74o, LOL. I have a playable stack now and switch back to TAG.

By the time we are hand for hand (13) players, I have a good sized stack, 4th or 5th in chips. I switch to bubble play mode raising 8 out of 10 hands per orbit, and pick up several blinds and antes, put a couple of bad beats on short stack AI calls, e.g. KK vs A2s for the flush.

I make the final table in 4th place, with 3 people too short to make a complete orbit and decide to play tight/position only until we down those 3 people. All 3 are out in the first orbit. And I open up my game a little. And take out a small stack myself, down to 6. I pickup a couple of small pots and make one bad, bad play against a weak/tight player and am short stacked again.

I announce AI before the hand is delt from UTG without enough to pay the SB. Four way action with two AI, doesnt look good for me... I flip over 67h for a flush MHIG for the main pot and the big stack takes out both AI players!!! Down to four and in the BB and still short stacked, guy in the SB is the same guy from way back when I first went AI in the dark, folds to him and he is insta AI and I say, "bad timing, not only am I the luck box here, I have AA and call", MHIG. I am now 2nd or 3rd in chips. Fourth goes out the next hand. We play three handed trading stacks for nearly 45 miniutes, no one getting very far ahead of anyone else.

I call flat call from the button with QQ with SB getting short (weak/tight middle aged lady) and ~equal stack BB (LAG/TAG depending on the moment). I know this is going to scare the BB. SB tries to raise but fails to put enough chips for a minimum raise, BB insta mucks before he seen the misplay of the SB, his hand is deep in the muck and not recoverable. Tournament director sitting at the table calls a stop and we talk about the play, it is decided that she must at the least make the minimum raise, I "act" upset that she would be allowed to make it an AI raise and say "you might as well make AI as you only have 20,000 left with the minimum raise anyways...", she thinks about it for a minute and puts the rest in and I insta call, she flips up JJ, my QQ is good!

We play HU for nearly 45 minutes! The blinds/antes are getting totally out of hand, ~T$500,000 chips in play with 50,000/100,000/5000 blinds. We are in push mode, his 33 against my Q9o, MHIG and take the win.

A big thanks goes out to the regular posters here in the MTT forum. I had some incredible luck in the right places, but this gave me the opurtunity to make the right plays when it counted.