The Big Tournament

Sunday finals day and my practice games online were miserable. Tried playing in the cash game for a while and lost a bunch (over $200). This was not looking good, but am always hopeful. The seat draw was o.k. with all the small stacks and only one giant stack (Max). Overall, a decent table. My game went uneventfully, with my chip stack increasing slightly with pretty mediocre cards. I ran into two problem hands, one with my AJ in the cutoff. I raised 3 times the big blind to 12,000, and the small blind (Max) reraised me to 36,000 which was about all of my chips. I quickly folded and he showed pocket aces. Disaster avoided. The next problem hand came when I raised in early position to 17,500 with my pocket 8's (I think the blinds were 2/4000). I was called from the button and when the flop came A/K/J, I checked and folded to the all-in bet. With a couple of pushes with small pairs as we got down to about 12 players total, I took advantage of everyone tightening up. Once I pushed with 3's, and Alex, a very good player (not big wild Alex), told me that he had folded 4's. I pushed once more with 2's, and Alex said he folded pocket 3's!!!! It shows that the aggressor has a really big advantage, as you can push with small pairs, but you just can't call, as you are either in a coin flip or dominated by a bigger pair.

Something very upsetting happened when we got down to 10 players. Only 9 would get paid, with 9th getting $500, so someone on the other table suggested that we pay the bubble boy his $120 entry back. Everyone quickly agreed except for easily the worst player in the tournament, Paul. He had been a totally oblivious luckbox and was the 2nd shortest stack, so it made no sense for him to vetoe the idea, particularly since the money would come out of 1st and 2nd places!! There were a few pointed comments to him from some people you wouldn't expect to say anything, and shortly afterwards Grady got knocked out and we went to the final table. My draw was bad, seat 4 with the other short stacks, Paul at 2, and Bob P. at 3. We all made one run around the table and Bob was forced all in and got knocked out. Paul went next, and I noticed that I could not get through the blinds (now 10/20,000), so I picked my spot and went all-in with K/10 two under the gun. Everyone folded to the big blind who only had to call 8,000 more with A/9. His ace held and I was out in 7th place for an $800 win. In retrospect, I could not have done much better, though I may have by waiting until my big blind as Sheila was fairly short stacked and she is also very conservative...so she might have folded her small blind to me if she was not raised.....Oh, well. Sometimes you just have to jump. Overall I felt good about my tournament, and with a few better cards and a couple of breaks I could have gone deeper, but it is always good to cash.