On To Step Three !

Tonight after work I played in a Step Two satellite on Pokerstars and WON a seat for Step Three worth $82 ! This was one of the more interesting sng's I've played, as there were two players involved in the sng who were from the same town (in a foreign country) and after about ten minutes of play I could plainly see that they were colluding. They were inolved in a lot of pots, and there was a lot of chip movement between the two players - on a lot of hands one would raise, the other would reraise, and the first would fold. Fortunately for me I picked up KK a few hands in and got doubled up by 10-10 on an all-undercards flop, and then got JJ in the blinds and was able to get it all-in vs. 55 on a 222 flop, giving me a sizeable stack early. I managed my stack well, and because of the two aggressive guys, I played pretty basic poker with a few timely bluffs mixed in for balance. I also gained from the fact that I played both the KK and the JJ hands very fast, so when I played other hands full speed ahead it looked to the field like I had a monster. Four-handed, we had one extremely tight short stack who played NO hands, and fortunately for me he was SB when I was BB and he gave me a LOT of walks. When he finally busted I had a slight chip lead, and I was able to use my knowledge of how my opponents were betting and my tight image to maintain my lead. On the final hand, the smaller stack of the two min-raised the button (which he had done a bunch of times), I repopped with 66 in the SB, and he snapped off the call with QQ. Luck was on my side however- the flop came A-7-6, and my trips held up. That hand was the only time I got my money in bad, and it turned out good. And "cheaters never win". Next up - Step Three !