I made my way to the tables on Friday night around midnight. The poker room at Walker Hill was full, but I got a seat at a make-shift table that was set up for overflow. $5/10NL, $2/5NL and I think 3 $1/2NL games were running full.I wasn't happy with the action at my table, so I asked for seat changes and table-hopped for a couple hours until I got into the "main" game, which was more deep stacked than the others.
I had originally bought in for $500 but was down to $300 after losing $200 in my first round of play at the overflow table. I held 44 and the flop came 874 rainbow after I called a sizable under-the-gun raise in late position. The original raiser led out for $40, and seeing that he only had a little over $100 left I raised him all in. He gave a lengthy speech, bemoaning that he new I'd flopped the straight. After a couple of minutes he finally called, showing 88 for top set. Shocked that he hadn't insta-called, I doubled him up with no 4 on the turn or river.
But now, finally getting to the main game I played pretty tight. I grinded my stack back up to a little over $500 with basic no-frills play. My first major boost came when I was dealt KK in early position...