Guaranteed action

Poker players love action, since action is the engine which builds (and sometimes destroys) your stack. In huge field MTTs, I'm finding that you get action in spades. It's a bit too much of a good thing, actually. Last night, I played four huge field MTTs, and didn't make the money in any of them. I consider that I got my money in good on every hand where I hit the felt, however. Let's take a look:

MTT 1: I was dealt pocket eights, went all in preflop, and got one caller, who'd been dealt ATo (ace ten offsuit). I was a 55.25% favorite to win the hand, but lost to trip aces.

MTT 2: I was dealt Ah Kh, went all in preflop, and got one caller, who'd been dealt Ac Ad. I was an 11.51% underdog, and lost to his pair of aces. Still, I consider that I got my money in good. This was what I call a retroactive bad beat :-)

MTT 3: I was dealt Ad Kd, went all in preflop, and got two callers. One had been dealt J9o (jack nine offsuit) and the other had been dealt a pair of fours. I had a 41.23% chance of winning, the J9o had a 28.54% chance, the pair of fours had a 29.83% chance, and there was a .4% chance there'd be a three way chop. The pair of fours won with a full house, fours full of threes.

MTT 4: I was dealt pocket jacks, went all in preflop, and got one caller, who'd been dealt Q7s (queen seven suited). I was a 68.75% favorite to win the hand, but lost to two pair, queens and sevens.

The largest field was in the second MTT, which had a colossal 993 entries. That MTT paid an incredible 240 places. The closest I came to making the money was in the first MTT, which had 783 entries and paid 189 places; I came in 214th.

style flavor buy_in entry players hands place winnings

MTT   NLHE      900   100       9    43   214        0
MTT   NLHE      900   100       6    27   341        0
MTT   NLHE      900   100       9     8   423        0
MTT   NLHE      900   100       6    28   443        0

delta: $-4,000
MTT NLHE balance: $-18,060
balance: $8,907,595