Strike 3

Ouch. 0 for 3 in the big money events and 1 for 1 with a small cash in a smaller tourney for the trip. I guess what hurts most is the one I did cash in on Thursday night since I had a great chance to make a big score. Here's how that tournament went down.

We started with ~150 players, 500 chips, and my initial table was pretty bad. There was this old lady across from me who gave me her whole stack calling down my AK with her A6 when an Ace hit the flop and I moved up to 10,000. There were a couple of decent players there but no one doing anything too tricky. I hit a very long cold run of cards after this and got pushed out of the few flops I saw after I hit nothing. But I did win enough pots to just stay about even as the blinds increased.

We got down to 30 left I still had 8,000 but the blinds were getting up to 400/800 with a 75 ante and I started having to make some desperate moves. When in the big blind it folded around to the very conservative SB who limped into me. I looked at K9s and pushed and he thought a long time before folding showing me A4. So I kinda dodged a small bullet there. I don't remember exactly how but I won a small pot a bit later to move up to 15000. Then I almost doubled up when my AQ called and AJ all-in and held up.

Was not getting many cards still and we got down to about 25 players with 500/1000 blinds when this hand happened. UTG limped quicky. UTG+1 (loose) also limped and mid-position guy who hadn't played many hands but talked a lot raised to 10,000. I looked down at pocket tens and thought real hard. Eventually I detrmined that the chance I was behind was too great and if I went all-in I was only getting called by muchbetter hands or possibly one that was a slight dog. So I folded. When UTG quickly called I was sure I made the right move. I didn't see how the board played out but It went to showdown where the raiser showed 52 of spades and the caller showed 76 of spades!!!!!! I was bewildered by the whole thing as was the guy who lost with the 52. I guess it shows that making a great read that your opponents limps are weak only works if the actually will fold to a reasonable raise. Also my TT would have held up so I threw up in my mouth at a wasted opportunity.

Moved to a new table when we went down to 2 tables at 20 players (top 18 paid). I was still pretty short. Many of the players left were pretty weak and I started getting awesome cards. I took down a pot when I raised with a big ace, got 1 caller and hit an ace on the flop, but the caller folded to my bet. I was getting big aces and high pocket pairs about 1 out of every 3 hands and raising them. Once we hit in the money people started calling me with weak hands and my chipstack went up tremendously. Made a huge double up off the chipleader at our table with my KK against his AQs. That guy busted shortly after and I went to the final table as the chipleader.

Payoff increases were steep at the FT but I felt pretty confident I could run the table if I kept getting big cards. First casualty was a nice kid who had been at my table earlier and played only big hands. He went rerasied all-in with JJ and was called by a guy with KQs, a weird hand to call an all-in rearaise with. 2 kings hit on the flop and this guy was toast for 10th place. I now had ~155k and this guy who just won the hand had about 140k. It's all bad news from here.

A couple hands later I'm 3 off the button and open raise the 4k/8k blinds to 22k with A9 of clubs. The guy with 140k calls from the SB. Flop is 863 with 2 clubs. He checks and I bet 24k into the pot which he deliberated for a while and the calls. The turn is a nonclub 5. He checks again. Now I should just check and see a free river. I know that. But I can't resist the urge to try to take that now. I thought he might fold I guess. I bet 30k and he stares at me for a long time before calling. River is a non-club 6 and we both check. I about fall out of my chair when he shows me T3o for a flopped bottom pair and enough to take it down.

I am down to 80k but still quite healthy relative to a lot of the remaining stacks. The very next hand i get pocket tens again (which I had gotten 2 times after the earlier folded TT hand and won nice pots). I raise to 23k and the same guy calls me again now on the button. I'm fine with that as he clearly will play anything and thinks he's got my number. With over 55k in the pot and 55k behind i was gonna push any flop that wasn't absolutely horrible or absolutely beatiful. A flop of Q82 looked perfectly reasonable to push. I do, he calls, and flips over Q8, no tens hit, and I am done. Booooooo!

Friday I played in the 1k+80 event. Start with 10k in chips, 25/50 blinds, 45 minute levels and 281 players. Not much noteworthy happened that I can remember. I played pretty conservative/passive/shitty. Tried to make a few moves early but couldn't hit any flops. I actually got real good cards preflop the whole early part of the day, but my flops were always horrid and full of action and I had to fold.

I again just hung around most of the day. got shortstacked and got 94o in the BB. I thought i was UTG and tried to fold but someone spoke up before i could and i had given away the weakness of my hand. Got several limpers so i see a flop of J94 all diamonds. I go all-in with bottom 2 and get called by AQ of diamonds and I hit a turn on the turn to get real lucky and double up. But I am still short. I keep making raises with both good and bad hands and my good hands everyone fold and my bad hands i get reraised. I am befuddled by this.

Eventually I am again short and have 1 limper when i get KTs in the SB. There is about 40% the size of my current stack in the pot. I shouild raise all-in, but i am a pussy and call. The flop is ten high all hearts. i go all-in and get called by K7 hearts and am out in ~100th place. I should have gone all-in preflop.

So I am a bit disappointed that I played so passively and scared for the most part. I was nervous and it showed even when i tried to keep it under control. But I did learn a lot about live play and got to recognize what I have to improve. I didn't get to get in much play as the big stack, because I wasn't hitting many flops early and wasn't picking up pots. hopefully things will go differently in a couple weeks.