Krewe of Hercules No Limit Tournament

This was my first appearance in the Krewe of Hercules No Limit Tournament. I was told there were about 160-180 players that showed up. Early on, it was a donk fest trying to chip up early and got caught in the middle couple times trying to win some races. 3 rebuys + 1 addon later I finally got my chipstack up to $42,000 from a total donk on my right. He had been preflop raising every other hand with very marginal hands like 45 suited, A2 suited, J9 suited. I had about $18,000 chips beginning at this new table and if I was going to play a few pots with this guy I was going to make it count.

Two key hands stick in my mind with this one very very agressive player. He had about $45,000 at the time and he was to my right. Blinds were 2,000/4000. He min raises 1 spot before the button, and the guy in the BB had been very tight at this point with about maybe 3 1/2 BB's left. Well I looked down at 3 4 spades, and thought about it for about 5 seconds with $24,000 left in chips and I decided to shove because he was obviously trying to pickup blinds like before. Everyone folded back to initial raiser, he thought about it for about 15-20 seconds folded showed me his 55 and said "I'll give you some respect". Well being that he had been really agressive, I knew I could probably put him on tilt if I showed him my 3 4 suited. Well, I told him I had pair and showed him the 3. I didn't want the rest of players to think I had loose image and that I really had a hand. Well about 3 hands later I picked up QQ, once again he raised 3 times the blind and I pushed, he only had half his stack left and he called me with J10. It held....gg....

Now we down to the last 4 tables. Had about $42,000 left when I got 99 in late position with small blind and big blind left to act. Of course I pushed preflop with blinds $5,000/$10,000 which I only had like 4 big blinds. Small blind took about 1 minute to call and flopped over K10 off suit. He flopped K, and the rest is history... good game sir, good call at the right time. If my 99 holds here I have a very good chance of getting to Final Table with my agressive play and as long as I was getting cards to push. Before this hand, the table was playing pretty tight after that first donk I chipped up from. All in all, I had a very good time, and I feel it was a pretty good turnout.

Sincerely,

Derek Ridley