Below is a shot of me taking out noted online MTT god Chad Batista, aka lilholdem, who has $1.9 million in tournament winings on Stars alone. He had played almost no hands, just a few steal attempts that he had to drop after pressure from the blinds or on the flop, and made a short-stack shove with ATs. I woke up in the BB with AKo after and called. Since I had doubled up a few hands earlier after winning a race with JJ vs. AQ, this put me up near the top of the leaderboard for a brief while.
After that, I hung in there in the money spots for quite some time before a shorty shoved and I called off one-third of my stack with KTo. I figure I was ahead of his range, but of course I couldn't even have two live cards as he showed KQ. That hit knocked me down into push-and-pray mode, where I held until close to the bubble. Then I took this ridiculous beat at the hands of successful online MTT player and blogger, sprstoner. Even though I was a 15-1 favorite after the flop, I knew my fate was sealed when the second heart came on the turn and I was right. I was done on the next hand when my sooted connectors failed to, well, connect. Sprstoner didn't do too much better and went out only one or two places after me.
If I had held on in this or, god forbid, pulled in a decent cash, I might actually be able to play it more often. As it stands, however, the $109 buy in is too rich for my current bankroll and I'll have to rebuild before I try it again.
