a must-win bet, and a hot streak

Yet another win on Monday night. Chip went out outside of the points and I am now forty-one points ahead of him. Added to that was the fact that Dale and I had a $20 must-win bet on the game. A must-win bet means that one of the two of us had to come in first place in the tournament to collect, otherwise the bet was a tie. I gave Dale 3 to 2 odds, meaning that if he won I'd have to have given him $30. Interestingly, he held the chip lead for most of the game.

If there was a theme to the tournament for me, it was definitely the big pots I played with the ace-king. It seems like almost all of the larger pots I was in tonight, that was the hand I held. In fact, I held the ace-king the last hand of the tournament, and was all-in in a pot with it at least four or five times. Perhaps the biggest pot with it happened when we were three-handed, and Marc and I held most of the chips. Marc raised it up to $3 from the small blind, and I came over the top from the big blind with the AK of diamonds, making it $8.50. Marc called, and the flop came 6 3 6. Marc checked to me, and I thought about it for a while, and then bet $12. Rather quickly, Marc went all-in. I thought about it for a while, and made the call. Marc showed me the ace-queen! I eliminated him, and gathered what was probably the largest pot of the night.

Unfortunately for Lee, he ran into some tough luck during the tournament, getting eliminated twice when his pocket jacks ran into pocket queens. However, for me it was a good night, as I earned chips in three places: from winning the tournament, from a small win in the cash game afterwards, and from collecting on my must-win.

Perhaps best of all, though, is the fact that this is my third consecutive first place finish in the Monday night game this year, a feat which I also accomplished in 2007, but no other player in the game has done so far. On one hand, I'd like to see another player do that well out there so that I can feel like I've got real competition, but on the other (more important) hand, I'd rather win it myself.