A small winner-take-all

I played in a $5 winner-take-all freezeout tonight with Jake, his wife Renee, Chris, and Marc, and managed to win it. I gained a slight lead in the first hand when I made the nut flush against Chris's two pair and increased my chips by over 20%. Chris was later taken out by Renee when he bluffed all-in with the queen-jack on a flop of A73, and was called by two tens. Marc was next to go out, and we played three-handed for a while, with Jake as the relative short stack and myself in the lead. A few hands in, I was dealt QQ while Jake held the TT. When the flop came 8 high, I bet and he raised all-in. I called and my hand held up.
Renee and I played for a good little while, and I was stealing a lot of her blinds, until I had a massive chip lead. On the button, I held the 97 offsuit, and because she had been folding a lot of hands and was short on chips, I raised it to ¢80. She made it $2 straight, and I called it in position, since she had only about $4 left and was folding a lot. I figured if she missed the board I might be able to make her fold even though mathematically she was pot-committed. the board came 538, and she thought for a minute and checked it to me. The pot was $4, and she had only $4 left, so I decided if I was going to buy it that I had to bet all she had (at this point I had at least $30 or $40 in chips). I did, and to my horror she called and rolled over pocket kings!! However, I was fortunate enough to catch my four-outer on the river, making the nine-high straight and winning the tournament, which was good for $20 in profit.

All in all, a good game. By the way, check out the new poll on online vs. live play, as well as the updated video of the Kaplan/Lederer/Nejad/Rousso/Duke/Gazes tournament from Poker After Dark season two.