Mini steppin to some moolah

Well, I finally played my freeroll into the 5th step of the new party poker mini steps, and it payed off to the sum of $200. I don’t have a large bankroll to play with online, seeing how I just started playing online about 8 months ago and bought in for $50, then $50, then $50 more. So this little boost will allow me to start playing some $1/$2 instead of the measley $.50/$1 that I’ve been playing. I typically just play limit, but I'll play the occassional $5 SnG, so I figured I'd try out the new mini steps since they're only $6. Here’s the little journey that took me through the steps.

Bought into step 1 for $6 – 1st place advanced to step 2
Freeroll into step 2 – 1st place advance to step 3
Freeroll into step 3 – 1st place advance to step 4
Freeroll into step 4 – 1st place advance to step 5 WOO HOO
Freeroll into step 5 – 5th place payout $200

I’ll go over my play from the fifth step. As you’ll see it was pretty uneventful but I made one mistake that probably would have gotten me a higher spot. Maybe two mistakes but who’s counting.
First hand A6s from OTB + 1, wasn’t at the computer when the tourney started and got back to it right before my time ran out, so I hurridly clicked call. To my avail everyone limped and then checked through the entire hand and I picked up a $90 pot with pair of sixes, up to $1075. 6Jo fold, 77 MP fold, 38o fold, Q9 fold, 28o fold, K5o fold. Then still in the 10/15 blind level, I get AKo utg and raise it to $55. UTG + 1 reraises to $125, fold around to SB and he flat calls. This wasn’t what I was hoping for, had the re-raise been folded to me I probably would have pushed all in. Instead I folded. I just didn’t want to play that hand out of position at this early point in the tournament; mistake number one. The flop had an ace and both of them got all their money in the pot. The re-raiser had an 87o !?!?!? The SB had AKo and we would have split the other guy’s money, down to $1020. Oh well. Now comes an on-slaught of bad cards 26, 83, 92, J5, etc. So I continuely fold, until in the $50/$100 level I pick up QQ in MP and raise to $300. Everyone folds and I pick up some blinds, up to $1025. Not much more action, I continue to get horrible cards and the only chances I think I might get at stealing someone raises before it gets to me. It gets down to six players in the $100/$200 level and I’m down to $575, but there’s another guy with only $390. I get ATo, the guy with $390 goes in, I re-raise all in and dang, player to my left goes all-in. We’re the only three in the pot, Mr $390 has KJo, the guy to my left has 77, the board comes out, TQ79 DAMMIT, he got a straight. River…..YES Q. Pocket sevens makes his boat and puts the other two of us out to give me 5th place, since I had more chips going into the hand. Whew, barely made it out of that one. I was ecstatic to win that kind of money from my $6 investment. If I hadn’t went in with my AT, I would have still at least gotten 5th and would have had a chance to advance a little further. That said I didn’t know that the pocket sevens were going to call and possibly put the 390 guy out, so I kind of had to since he was a little more desperate than me and likely to be holding less than I was. I guess had I went all in with the AK early on I probably wouldn’t have had to go in when I did, and taken a chance of going out 6th instead of 5th, but these things are all about waiting. If you can wait long enough, you’ll be in the money. As you can see, I only played 2 hands past the flop. Overall, I'm pretty proud of my success through the first 4 steps. Most of the people that I have talked to or read about, have to attempt several of the steps multiple times. I was lucky enough to get through them in one. I am going to start a new journey through them tonight, hopefully it will be as successful. Later