Step 5 Finally

It took about 9 tries but I finally won a WSOP Step 4 tourney tonight and now have a ticket to a Step 5 tourney. It definitely wasn't easy though. I was lucky enough to win each "race" that I was involved in tonight and that's what propelled me to victory.

I doubled up rather early when I got all-in with AA against my opponent's KK. I was under-the-gun (right after the blinds) and made my standard pre-flop raise. My opponent was in late position and made a standard re-raise. I assumed he had at least a pocket pair or maybe AK.

The flop came down Qh4h3c and I checked to him. He made a standard continuation bet and I raised him. He pushed all-in and I called of course. My aces held up and I was now the chip leader with 8 players left.

At this point I became rather aggressive. Everyone seemed to be very timid any time I raised so I won most pots uncontested. When we were down to 7 players, I called an all-in raise when I had 55 in the big blind. The raiser turned over AJ and my pocket 5's held up to win my first race.

I continued the aggression and won a race with my 33 against AQ. On the previous hand, another player had won a race (not against me) and doubled up to take over the chip lead from me. We were down to 3 players at this point.

I have finished in 3rd place 6 times so far (including 1 other time today) and I was determined to win tonight. I had about 4500 in chips as did one of the other players and the 3rd player had about 3000.

I finally won when I had 77 in the big blind and the short stack pushed all-in from the small blind. I called and he turned over 33. He had only 2 outs until the flop came down 456. That took away his original 2 outs as another 3 now gave me a straight. But now he could catch a 2 (4 outs) or a 7 (2 outs) to win. Lucky for me the turn and river didn't help him.

I am so relieved to have finally won a Step 4 tourney but I doubt I'll be using my Step 5 ticket very soon. I would really like to get at least 1 more Step 5 ticket before I play in one of the tourneys. This seems to help me psyche since I don't feel the pressure to win or be done.

I also think I'm going to watch a Step 5 tourney before I try one so that I get a feel for the caliber of play. I was initially very surprised by the ability of some of the Step 4 players and I don't want to be surprised during a Step 5 tourney.