The $180 satellite

Waiting for a $180 Satellite SnG but seats fill slowly

Finally we got started. I really got cards this time - and played them well of course ;-)

Some tough laydowns that payed off as we had some good to decent players on that table.
Almost busted the first player with a flopped set of Jacks. He put me on two pair (holding the top pair himself and was quite surprised). He had some chips left but was able to hang in until 4th place. Despite of that I never had to go all-in again. No big movements but steadily climbing up. One painful loss: Flopped a straight with 79 in the big blind and slowplayed it as the flop of 8-10-J would have looked suspicious. Turn was blank and I bet half the pot. He called. River came a 9 I bet again, he called and showed a Q. Ugh, that hurt. Finally I ended heads-up with that guy. Allmost equal stacks. He asked to chop and I was thinking what to do.

My goal was to win a seat for the $1500 game next day. As we would get three $500 tournament tokens + $150 we had to split them 2-1 and some cash. That wouldn't help me so I was close to decide to play it out. On the other hand I would have been quite depressed leaving with nothing here. And he was a tough opponent. I don't think I won a single hand against him in the tournament.
So I decided to let him take two chips and I got one and $325 in cash. This left me with a net win in cash of $145 plus the $500 token. I will now play a $120 satellite later that day for the remaining 2 tokens. If I don't get them it should be quite easy to sell mine for about $400.