I had been ahead, but in a hand where we were trying to muscle each other around, he had my KT dominated and doubled up.

This was 8 hands later, and I had stopped being ultra aggressive pre flop.

It was my Small Blind, I had 3590 after the 80 blind, and he had 5170 after paying his 160.
I held AA so I called.
The pot is 320, he checks.
The flop was 894, rainbow.
He bets 320, and I assume he has hit. If he is betting a draw, I dont want him to take it cheap.

I raise to 1280 and he goes all in for 5K
I call and he shows Q8, hitting second pair.
He has 5 outs to improve.

The turn is an 8, leaving me all but dead. I had two outs to improve.

The river is an ace, giving me aces full of 8s.

I steam rolled him after that hand.

I folded the next six hands, and stole two of the next three on the flop.

Then I limp in on the cutoff with 22.
A min raise from small blind is too cheap, so I call.
The flop comes 8J2, all hearts. He checks, I pot bet, he pushes all in.
I figure I have 9 outs for a full house. I call and he shows AA, with the Ah. No more hearts, so I win.

In the next 7 hands, I win two. The first was an opening pot raise from middle position to which I got no callers. I had KTo – I was using the momentum of my last win to steal.

The next hand was in my small blind, when I had AA, and I reraised a raiser. He felt I was just pushing back so pushed all in with QJ suited.
He commended my play when he lost.

three hands after that, I was under the gun. (Yes, we had a short table.)
I was under the gun with pocket 2.
I almost limped.
However, I didn’t want to limp under the gun, because I could not call out of position to a raise.
As it turned out, I could have limped in, as the action was not raised.
I could have raised, I guess. I chose not to – as my 22 had won earlier with luck. I didn’t feel it would hold up again.

But the flop came 2Q2 – I would have flopped quads.
Gutted, I would have won a decent pot and set myself up nicely for final table.

While I feel that all my winning hands so far had been pure luck (hence this thread) I also feel that I played them well to maximise my return.

This went to hell on the final table.

My first mistake was with 99.
I was on the button, and five people limped in – including myself, small and big blind.
The flop came 77T and my second mistake was calling the min bet, min raise on the flop.
My third mistake was calling the all in bet / call on the river.
I knew that on a 77TK7 board, my 99 was beaten. I just felt too sticky to my hand. 77799 seems good when considered in isolation. But the play told me to fold, and my finger clicked call.

The biggest factor in this decision was that if I lost, I still had enough chips to remain in 5th position.
I should have saved that 1200.

Two hands later, I lost another hand for 515 but at least I played this one correctly.
Under the gun, short stack pushed all in for 515, when it got to me I pushed all in with 88. No other callers, he showed AJ but he hit the Jack.

I folded quite a few more hands after that, until in the button I limped in with Ac3c.
The flop was A87 (no clubs), and I called the min bet. Then we both checked the flop, and with the river an Ace, I called the all in bet, and my trip aces lost to trip aces with a Jack kicker.

No actual bad beats in this story I guess.
Just sharing my plays in the last tourney.

The turn was Qc
The river was Ks
Go me!