Clawing Away

I've been playing much better today. I was at a fairly rough table to start and that, combined with my i-pod, got me to focus I think. A pot came up early on where I raised to 800 (150-300 blinds) with KK. Carlos Zambrano called on the button and then the big blind Gregg Merkow called. I had just 11k entering the hand so it was going to be hard to find a foldable flop. It came down T94 with two spades and Merkow bet out 1600. This is always a suspicious bet from a good player but I obviously wasn't folding. My first thought obviously was to go all-in but I decided to just raise to 5k in case Carlos flopped a set. Carlos quickly went all-in after my raise and then Merkow called. It didn't take me long to fold, Merkow had 9d4d, Carlos had AsJs, a spade hit the turn and Carlos doubled. It's incredible that I did not go broke on this hand. So many things have to happen in order for me to fold:

1. Carlos has to smoothcall preflop instead of reraising
2. Merkow has to call a raise with 94s
3. I have to raise the flop instead of shoving
4. Carlos has to decide to go all-in instead of folding his draw
5. Merkow has to call him
6. I have to decide to throw it away despite the pot odds

So I guess I may have a guardian angel out there, or maybe there is a reason why I haven't busted out of this tournament yet despite little in terms of good cards or good play. As long as I still have chips there is still a chance.

After that incident I ran it up to around 10k by picking up some big hands and have big stacks call my raises and then fold on the flop. I then went completely card-dead, got moved to a fearsome table with Brandon Adams, Thomas Wahlroos, Alex Jacob, JJ Liu, Gigabet, and a tough older Asian player in that order to my left. I stayed card dead before moving all in with QQ and doubling through the Village Idiot's K9s and then pulling a successful squeeze play. I now have 17.6k.

The Fish, contrary to reports on Cardplayer, is still alive with a very short stack of around 8k. It's not going to be easy for us as the antes finally hit after dinner, but the higher stakes can potentially lead to a faster comeback.