FTOPS ME: 146th place finish

The Full Tilt Online Poker Series Main Event is a tournament I always try to turn out for. It's filled with donkeys and has a huge first place payout. I'd love to hit it big someday.

Instead, I'll settle for 146th place out of 4,750 players, for a decent $1,900 payout. I'll take it. The real money is at the final two tables, so I feel OK about busting when I did rather than creeping along for a slightly higher prize. You have to play for the real money.

The story of this tournament for me was success -- and eventual failure -- with AK.

Over 398 hands played, I was dealt AK 11 times, and I won with it all but once, on my bustout hand. Three times when I was called with AK, I flopped an Ace or a King. Once I didn't, on my last hand.

The other impression I'm left with from this tournament is the absolute importance of stealing and restealing, even with mediocre hands. I believe I simply won't get enough good cards in most tournaments to be able to wait for a premium hand. I need to constantly seek out situations where I can force opponents to fold, giving me chips without having to see a flop.

Those steals worked well until I overshoved with 66 with an M of about 7 and got called by QQ for my biggest loss of the tourney.

Other than all those AK hands, it seems like I didn't get dealt many decent cards. I had AQ four times, AJ twice and KK twice (neither of which won me many chips). My next-best hand was TT, which I folded three times preflop (and would have lost all three times).

There's not much more to say. You have to steal to stay alive, and I felt like I did a good job to accumulate enough chips through steals to build my stack for when those AK hands doubled me up.

Thanks to my backers and railbirds: Kuro, Fuel, RecessRampage, Pirate Lawyer and cmitch.