Double Donkey Play

Situation: Moose $25 tournament, 22 players. Big Blind, early (50/100 blinds), i have about 1700. Everyone folds to small blind, an excellent player, who completes. I have Q/10 offsuit and check my option (1st donkey mistake, small blind showed weakness by limping, should have raised then). Flop is 10/6/2 with 2 diamonds. Small blind bets 200, I raise to 600 (about 1/3 of my chips). Pot is now 1000 and I have maybe 1100 behind. Small blind reraises me all-in (he has me covered). I pause briefly....and call. This would have been an excellent spot to lay any pair down including kings. The small blind could have the following hands:

10/10, JJ, QQ, KK, AA, A10, 10K, 10J, 66, 22, 10/2, 10/6, 6/2 or two diamonds with the 10 of diamonds. These are all hands I am way behind with.

Turns out he had limped with 10/2 offsuit. I had outs, but by raising for information (or what I believed to be the best hand) and ignoring the information he gave me I got knocked out. This was an ultimate donkey play...first by not raising preflop with a strong hand in position, then by calling with a hand that is probably beaten.

Luckiest Player Ever

I am always getting all my money in with the worst of it. You know, overcards to my cards, pair over pair, dominated hands, etc., yet I always manage to get my runner runner to win the all-ins. WAIT! That's the other guy!! Never mind.

Punishment

• At the legion tournament I was seated with a very arrogant, very lucky player. I had never played with him before and he just had this cocky air about him that I just did not like. He bumped into Ross twice early on, a pretty solid player who has won a zillion times in our weekly tournament. The first one Ross raised with pocket queens, this guy reraises big and Ross goes into the tank and asks if he will show if he folds. The guy agrees, Ross folds his queens face up and this guy shows...pocket jacks! I would never in a million years have folded the queens, but hey that's me. A hand or two later they both end up on the river with a king high straight on the board, Ross having two pair. The guy bets into him and Ross lays it down in fear of an ace...which the guy doesn't show while very arrogantly making some comment about having to pay to see it.
• Later "the guy" knocks out a player who flopped two pair with his AQ vs his AK, but the turn....a king!
• He then knocks the dealer out with his AJ when he rivers a straight over the dealer's two pair, king queen with his gutshot on the river.

Anyway, you get the drift. I was happy to move to another table, but he drew the seat two to my left when we consolidated to three tables. On my big blind, he and the under the gun limped in and I had K/4 spades. I checked my option and the flop came king high with one spade. I bet 3 times the big blind, the UTG called and he reraised me 3 times my bet. Really, without thinking much I reraised all in, trying to isolate him. My first thought was that he might have a small pair and was trying to get weak kings to fold. He held KQ offsuit and I was drawing thin. The turn brought another spade, tripling my outs, but his hand held up. It appears that he can catch 3 and 4 outers all day, but 11 outers fail me.

In retrospect, dumb play, but I think that the big part of my problem was wanting to punish the luckbox and not just playing smart.

Bad Flops/Bad Matchups

There is nothing sicker than losing all your chips with a premium hand by getting a very bad flop for your hand (and a dream flop for your opponent), or by getting the worst possible matchups. Here are some recent tournament problems I have had this week:

1. My all-in with AJ, 2 callers, one with AK, the other with JK. With any flop other than 2 jacks, straight cards, or possible flush with my ace, drawing almost as dead as the KJ.

2. My AK, flop is 66K, naturally my one caller has 6/5 suited.

3. My pocket 9's all-in vs. opponent's pocket 7's ( he catches his two outer on the flop).

4. My A/9, big raise called by Q/10 (yes I know, but I was a big stack late in tournament). Flop is 9/k/j for a flopped straight. Should have been able to get away from it, but after continuation bet with a call, I pushed on turn.

I am running very very bad in tournaments this week, but doing better in cash omaha games. Just waiting for my luck to change for the better!!!

Tilt versus Tilt

I have been able to avoid going on tilt (mostly) for a very long time. It is something about playing a lot that probably hardens you to the crazy calls, unbelievably lucky suckouts, and all the other random stuff that happens at the table. But, yesterday at the American Legion I was saying to the guy next me, "just shoot me" and was fully prepared to just throw all my chips in on the next hand. What was it that put me on tilt? First of all it was a very "chatty" table. There were a couple of players that were talking a lot while deciding what to do. In addition, the dealer was chatting and taking forever to shuffle, deal, split pots, figure out all-ins, etc. Playing and dealing is a thankless task there...I no longer do it as it "pays" $10 plus 3 free drinks is just not worth the distraction while playing. All this is going on during that time in the tournament when blinds are starting to get large, and it really hurts small stacks when the play is so slow they get bumped up to a bigger blind unnecessarily soon.

But the real problem was one of the very slow chatty players who was just playing random cards aggressively and getting very lucky. Finally I picked up AK suited and reraised him all-in (my all-in not his). My AK held up against his trash and I doubled up. He then went on super tilt and went all-in blind 3 hands in a row. Someone called with a poor but dominating hand to his (10/8 vs 10/5 i think), and he caught his 5. That put the other player on tilt. Finally he was eliminated and the table regained some degree of normalcy.

I ended up making the final table but went out on the money bubble in 7th place after getting super lucky on an all-in with my A4 suited vs AJ offsuit and flopping the flush, but then "live by the sword, die by the sword" when I went all-in with A4 suited vs AQ. Sadly, I even hit my 4, but he hit his queen....oh well......

Moving Past Results Oriented Play

O.K., this is sounding a little bit like "loser talk", but let me elaborate. I have been playing in lots and lots of tournaments simultaneously online. My drug of choice has been spadepoker.com which runs tournaments every 15 minutes. They have some Omaha pot limit high only, which is becoming a favorite, but I still lack some basic skills....like choosing great starting hands. Still, I have been able to win some pretty big tournaments, and usually get very deep by playing conservatively, waiting for the right position and cards.

When I say that I am moving past results oriented play, when you play several tables at once you are forced to make quick decisions, and those decisions are based on starting hands and position as well as pot odds, which you must calculate very quickly. For example, if I am in late position and there are 4 or 5 limpers, and it is early in the tournament I will limp with any two cards with the intention of folding to a blind raise. The decision is a pot odds one, and I am looking for a miracle flop in position. Because I am looking for a miracle, when the flop is air for me, I am not disappointed in the results. I am basing my actions on making good decisions, not expecting good results, but happy if I get them.

Another way of looking at this is when you get pocket aces. We all love to look down and see American Airlines looking back at us, yet I have busted out of many tournaments when I have gone all in with them. Some players (including me in the past) have cursed the poker gods because of the ENTITLEMENT they feel when starting with the best hand. You just have to get over it and accept that you made the right decision, someone else felt that they made the right decision with their pocket jacks, then got ultra lucky to catch their two outer. The bottom line is that if we focus on results we will sometimes be happy and sometimes sad. If we focus instead on making good decisions we can be disappointed, but still feel good about our play. I busted out of the Legion tournament last night after about an hour of play. I made some marginal decisions (raising in late position with A/3 offsuit, getting called from the big blind, continuing to bet through the river with calls all the way....I did flop an open end straight draw) that cost me chips early, but ended up going all in with my eyes wide open, extremely sure that I was behind. I had A/8 spades, flop was 10/Jack/King with two spades....One all in, one over the top all in, me acting last. As expected, the first bettor had 10/J for two pair, the second had A/Q for flopped straight. What made my decision easy was that I had around 7 big blinds and the pot was laying me very good odds with a couple of limpers folding. I missed my flush draw (could also have split the pot with a queen) but left with no regrets. I did not achieve the results I wanted, but felt I made a good decision at the end.