5k #2

I will remember two hands from this tournament, both where I had opportunities to make a dynamic, world-class play after open-limping but ultimately took the standard and incorrect route.

With blinds at 50-100 I open-limped in the cutoff with JTo. I limped cause the two guys to my left were playing quite aggressive and I didn't want to get reraised. Well of course then the guy to my left raised to 450 and the small blind (Kevin Song) reraised to 1100. This was such a good spot for me to represent aces and pop it up to 2700. Everything was set up perfectly here - my image, the spot, the fact the other two guys could both be fooling around. Ultimately though I folded, mainly cause Song made such a small reraise out of position which felt strong. Song ended up showing down AJo and the other guy had pocket sixes, so it definitely would have worked.

The next level, with blinds at 100-200 I open-limped pocket kings in second position. The aggressive guy behind me made it 1000, and then an old guy two behind him made it 2500. It folded back to me where I had 8600. The old guy had shown down two hands: one where he had called a raise and then called three big bets on a board of J87xK and turned over a surprising set of eights; and one where he opened for 6x in the first level and showed AA after everyone folded. He was playing a fair number of pots and playing pretty passively. I thought until someone called a clock, and then I thought for half of it and moved all-in. The other guy folded, the old guy called with pocket aces, and I was out.

I have folded pocket kings preflop 7-10 times in cash games, but never in a tournament. There have been a couple chances during the last year. This one was probably the best opportunity yet, but I just couldn't quite do it.