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#048 – FTOPS #8 Update B – The King of Second Hour
For the second night in a row, I OWN the FTOPS … when it’s way too early to matter. I won’t, like last night, provide the excruciating detail of every hand, but I got action twice with A-A and made a couple other successful plays. At halfway to the next break, I made it to the first page of the leaderboard with over 11,000 chips. Just to prove to me how little it mattered, before the second break, I managed to lose enough of them to enter myself in the $30,000 Guarantee tourney, which is my unofficial ”consolation” event at the FTOPS. I am down to XXXX chips.
At the second break, there were still 390 players left, with a chip average of 7,000.
The following pros have been eliminated: Aaron Bartley, Berry Johnston, Rafe Furst, Layne Flack. David Chiu, who apparently found a new foil tonight, is cruising with 18,000 chips in 9th place. After the break, we start the 120-240 level.
If I was the king of the first half of the second hour, Clonie Gowen was the queen.
She was again on very short chips, when she got all-in with K-J. There were several players calling her, eager, no doubt, for the bounty. After a flop of 8-8-6, a player with A-Q bet out the others. Clonie was still almost 25% to win, but she obviously needed some luck.
And she got it, hitting a king on the turn and, for good measure, a jack on the river, tripling up to 2,700. After AGAIN being short stacked, she got to nearly 4,000. It was folded to her button and she bet the pot, 300. The small blind called. The flop was A-7-6, 2 clubs. The small blind bet 120. Clonie moved all-in for her last 1,000 or so.
She had 5-8o for an open-ended straight draw. (She was obviously on a steal before the flop.) The called had A-3o for top pair. A nine on the turn made Gowen the straight. She doubled up again, finally exceeding the chip average for the first time since the opening hands, with A-T. She made a small raise and as called by the BB, holding Q-J.
Top-pair/top-kicker vs. open-ended-straight-draw/two-overcards? The chips were expected to be flying and were. The big blind check-raised, and they kept raising until all their chips were in. After another ten on the turn gave Clonie trips, the big blind still had outs to make the straight, but none of them hit on the river. As of 20 minutes before the break, she has 7,200 (vs. the average of 5,500).
My stack is down to 4,000 just before the break and to add to my woes, I’ve been moved to a table where the player to my immediate left is Allen Cunningham.
