I have been accused of whining too much about my bad beats, so this time I will take a fair and unbiased look at the Friday night tournament at the American Legion in Cannon Beach. I love this tournament, particularly now that smoking has been banned in clubs. I used to come home stinking of cigarette smoke and required to leave my clothes on the landing. Thanks to the new law I am enjoying it much more. To warm up for this tournament I played 3 sit n go's, bubbling two and coming in 2nd on the biggest one (27 person). I am employing my latest strategy which is to play tight and not get crazy stupid. A quick observation and resolution: whenever someone says to me, after I have raised, " I am going to put you all-in", I am going to fold just about every hand. The reason is that every time someone has said that, I am eliminated. Last night was a good example, sort of.
Anyway, back to the topic: Good Beats. The first one happened against the dealer, John. I raised pre-flop with KJ suited, which to me is a good hand not a great hand, but one that I see other players live and thrive with. John reraised me all in with pocket 9's and I had him well covered so I called. The flop had a 10, the turn an ace, and the river.....the queen for broadway! He was really angry and shoved the pot to me with a lot of force. I couldn't really understand his anger since I did have 6 outs preflop, and 10 on the turn. Oh well, it is nice not to have a distracted dealer trying to multi-task. The second beat (which was good for me, hence the good beat), was an all-in by a short stack, Jan, who had a weak ace (ace/3 offsuit). I was in the $800 big blind and it was only 700 more to me plus I had a good chip stack, so I called with 6/9 offsuit! The flop was super sweet, with both a 6 and a 9. The turn was a blank for Jan, and she was drawing dead to the river. My next victim was on the final table. I was 2nd in chips and feeling pretty good. Paul, on my right went all-in with pocket 5's and I quickly called with pocket 10's after asking him if he "had a monster hand". My 10's held up. Then I ran into trouble with pocket Jacks (are you listening Lynne?), I raised preflop 4 times the 1,000 blind and Kelly, a very quiet and unaggressive player, re-raised me all-in for 3,000 more. Rut Row!!! I had him well covered, and wouldn't be the short stack if I lost, so I called to see what else but pocket aces. Oh well. I recovered, took another player out and got back in the game. My downfall happened the big blind reached Eric, who had only 3000 of the 4000 blind. I had 11,000 and open/raised to 8,000 in middle position aiming to isolate Eric's blind, actually get a discount on my call, since I would get 1000 back on the side pot, and pick up the small blind with my pocket 5's. The only problem with my plan was that the small blind who had me covered woke up with pocket 9's. He asked, "how much more do you have, I will put you all-in". Since I only had 3,000 more, not enough for the big blind coming soon, I of course called. If I had gone all-in instead of betting 8,000 it would not have made any difference since he commented that he had pocket 9's the hand before and would have played them. Oh yes, we were down to 6 players and the tournament payed 6 spots and I was in the money, but would have come in 5th instead of 6th if Eric didn't win this pot. He spiked a queen (Q/5) on the river to take the main pot while the other player took our side pot.
Which brings me to the lesson. I just won't call most of the time when someone comments that he wants to put me all-in unless it makes sense from a pot odds standpoint. Also, another lesson is that I can be a stupid luckbox like a lot of other players when I go in with the worst hand and catch up.
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