1 Token Down, 3 Tokens Left

My bankroll has run dry. I took the $53 that I had remaining and turned it into 4 tokens. Not bad, since it means that I can buy into twice as many tournaments as I would have been able to, but I should have been sitting on six or seven tokens. I finished second in as many tables as I won, and three of them I had a chance to win but I either lost to suckouts or just forgot how to play heads up.

I used Token #1 to play the 26k guarantee on Wednesday. I made it through the first hour break with just crap hands. Only hands of note were JJ, TT, AT and AK.

TT: In the BB, UTG min-raises to 80. MP calls and I call. Flop comes 664 and UTG bets out 1\2 pot. MP makes it 600 and I fold. I was hoping to be the aggressor on this hand, but when MP reraises, I decide to fight another day. Not sure if this was a good fold - what beats me here? AA-JJ are probably out of the picture since there wasn't a reraise preflop. 6x? 44? Would he really push that hard with either of those? Doing this kind of analysis during the hand is something I'm trying to get better at. JJ is possible, other than that I have to figure I'm ahead.

JJ: Picked it up UTG and raised 3xBB. BB calls, flop comes QJ3, two spades. I bet out about 3\4 pot and he folds.

AT: Folds to me on the button, I raise 3xBB and BB pushes. Have to fold this one.

AK: Raise from the CO 4xBB and button reraises. Chips go in the middle and he's got TT. Hit a K on the turn to double up to about T2800

J7: Not a hand of note because it was so good, but because of how I played it. Folds to the button who raises it to 350. I'm in the BB and I put him on a steal, so I repop to 800. He immediately raises all in and I fold. I'm happy with my play, especially since I hadn't been playing aggressive; I wanted others to know that my blinds aren't there to be stolen. But I was playing more the circumstance rather than the player, and perhaps I could have picked a better spot\hand to resteal with. This drops me down to about T1400.

After the break, I play two hands:

Ax: Down to about T1200, I push all in from MP against 1 limper. Blinds and limper fold.

TT: Raise from MP with TT, button puts me all in. AK vs TT, K hits the river. I finish 469\1127, approximately.

This was only the second tourney I played in a while, and the biggest one I've ever played, but I'm not completely satisfied with my play. On the first TT, I can't possibly put the reraiser on an pair better than mine; maybe a semi-bluff with Ax of spades or a pair like 77-99. But I chose to fold and instead put my money in at a better spot where I'm the aggressor, like the AK hand. I played pretty tight preflop, folding hands like AJo in EP (Hoy would be so proud). I really didn't get that many big hands to play, but I didn't make the best of them when I did get them.

Things To Work On:

1. Post-Flop Play. The first TT hand is a good example. I'm too slow on my analysis right now, I need to sharpen that. Instead of limiting to myself to "what hand does he have", I need to think of possible hand ranges and go from there. Had I been thinking that way before, I probably push on the first TT hand.

EDIT: Thanks to PokerEnthusiast's comment, I see that folding the TT hand was probably correct. Although I'm probably ahead on the flop, against hands like AK through AJs, I'm not that much of a favorite. Thanks for the comment, PE.

2. Positional Aggression. I didn't get that many hands, but there were times where I was definitely playing too passively. There were probably a couple of occassions where I could have taken down a pot with a big pre-flop raise. Another problem was that I usually had a couple of short-stacks after me. I didn't have a big enough stack to bully them, so instead I folded out of fear that they would pick up a hand that they wanted to push with, and I either have to call with marginal hands or fold.