Off to a good start!

I kicked off my small MTT campaign last night with two final tables in 90 man tourneys. I played a mix of two $8.80 deep stack 90 man's, a $4.40 180 man and a $2.20 90 man just to keep me busy. By 2am I was on two final tables at once in the $8.80 and $2.20 tourneys :).

Unfortuneatley I could only manage 8th in the $2 and 5th in the $8. I went out of the $2 as I pushed over the top of a short stack all-in with ATs partly because I thought I was ahead and partly because I wanted to concentrate on the $8. The short stack had JJ and virtually knocked me out, AJs next hand saw me all-in and I didn't improve so that was that leaving me to concentrate on the potentially more lucrative game.

In the $8 I picked up A8o in the BB and made a crucial error. The table's most LAGy player (after me) raised my BB from thee button and I re-raised for half of my stack. It was a half-baked move that cost me, as he flat called and I missed the flop. He went all-in on the flop and I was forced to fold. Part of me was thinking that a re-raise of 3x his raise looked stronger than an all-in and the other half thought that I didn't want to put my life on the line with A8o. On reflection this was definately a push-fold situation, but we live and learn.

Two hands later I was in the cut-off with an M of 4 and a very tight player was in the BB who had the same stack as me. I still think this is probably an any 2 push and in my case I picked up 35o, which I reasoned to be live cards so shoved and was called by KQo, no help followed and I made my exit in 5th for $50. Up $35 for the night :)

All in all it was a very encouraging start to my new small MTT campaign and thanks to Rospicko for the suggestion to leave the $2 180 man turbos alone due to variance. I'm increasingly convinced they're the best way to go if I'm to switch from STT's to big MTT's as they are a great training ground for the situations you find yourself in when playing big MTT's.