Not Playing on the Final Table at American Legion Tonight

Busted just before the final two tables. Let me tell you of my sad tale. First off, there are players there that will call any raise with cr-p! Secondly, the same players will call you to the river with any bet if they get any piece of the flop or any draw. So, I had a wild ride with my pocket pairs. Got down then back up with a flopped set of 10's and was around 3000 chips when a 2400 stack raised with his AQ. I reraised all in with KK and another short stack calls with AJ. Perfect scenario for me. But, the dealer finds one of the two remaining aces, plus a queen and I am down to 600 in chips. The table then breaks down, I am moved to another table and yippee, move right into the big blind (200). With action I fold my 2/3 offsuit. In the small blind with only 300 behind I shove with AQ suited. The big blind folds, and I am back to 600. I call the 400 big blind (they went up the next hand) with Q10 hearts. With a queen high flop, the small blind bets, big blind, down to 200 as well, calls, and I call. Showdown I win 1800 with queen and best kicker.
Next hand I pick up A9 suited and push. The guy who found his two outer on the other table calls with JJ. The flop comes ace high and I am happy until the turn when the jack peels off. Unbelievable. Same guy getting lucky two times.

Bad Luck Streak

In tournaments today, I have just flat out been running unlucky. For example: First hand in a big tournament a middle position player raises about 12 times the big blind. I have pocket queens, so I min-reraise him. He pushes all in and I call. He has aces and I am gone first hand.

Tournament number 2: Early raiser, I reraise with pocket 10's. He flat calls. 9 high flop, he checks, I bet pot, he check raises all-in, I call. He has pocket 9's and flops top set. But wait, it gets better. The turn is the case 9 for quads and I am drawing dead. How can he hit the set (2 outer against me), then I fail to hit my 2 outer, and have him hit the very long shot?

Tournament number 3: I am running fairly good and raise 5x big blind (there are limpers)with AK, genius next to me calls with A/10 offsuit. I bet pot with
top pair, top kicker on a A/10/x flop. Genius sitting next to me calls. The turn...another 10. I am now crippled with about 1000 in chips (had about 4000), and he is chipped up. A few hands later I have QQ and shove. He instacalls with A/7 suited. There are 2 other callers, one with AK suited, the other with KK. Ace on the flop toasts me, then he hits running clubs for the flush. Nice, huh?

Last tournament today: 7 card stud, down to 12 players. One player has been sitting out but had a big stack and had me covered. I am about 7th in chips. I pick up a pair of jacks on the flop and come out firing. He chooses that hand to sit back down and calls with 3 connected (1 gap) cards. He hits the gutshot on 3rd street and the straight on 4th. I pick up 2 pair and keep firing till all in. My hand fails to fill up and I am gone.

Bad luck, bad calls and Spade Club is BS

Knocked out in 28th place, my KK vs 6/4 suited, huge raise preflop, all-in by bigger stack (barely), makes flush on river.



Called all in with QJ suited, AK suited makes quad aces.



My all-in with A/10 finds KK in big blind.

I could go on and on, but I digress. Today, I played in a big tournament and was the undisputed chip leader on the final table. I played too tight, especially against a frequent and light raiser, missing opportunities to knock my no. 2 and 3 rivals out (had both outchipped by 3 to 1). Ended up missing some giant draws and running into monsters slow played, also chipped one guy up big time when I attempted to trap in the small blind vs. bb with queens, he had 7 dewey, Lynne. Flop came small, with two deuces and a 7 on the river.

I am trying to determine if I am playing poorly, inconsistently, or if this site is just bs. Am starting to think it is all of the above. If I play super tight, the donks do me in. If I play loose, the rocks get me. If I mix it up I seem to pick the wrong spots. The flops are truly devastating as well with seemingly the wrong player making the right call against me most times.

How Spade Club is Ruining My Game

I have been a member of Spade Club for almost a year now. I am happy to report that I have won back my annual fee plus a year's subscription to Card Player magazine. That said, I am going to let my subscription lapse. Why? It is ruining my game. Because it is a subscription site, all the games are essentially freerolls. With entry based on points, you are under constant pressure to enter "point builder" tournaments or "blue or red token" tournaments to enter the cash award tourneys. Despite having lots of points (48,000), with maximum entry "cost" of 5,000 points, but lots of 10, 25, or 100 point enries, you still must accumulate points. They used to be much easier to get. My easiest strategy was entering late night tourneys and since I am on the West coast, there would be few entries....then just go to bed and sit out, coasting into some point increase. They closed that loophole by kicking you out after 42 hands of sitting out. So, now like the proverbial hamster on the wheel, I must enter tournament after tournament to get points to play in the bigger payout ones. But here is the rub. Because of the huge fields, the tournaments usually start out as donkfests with 3 or 4 people going all-in first hand on multiple tables. So, with a big hand you join the donks and get busted by the inspired 7/5 offsuit donk who triples up and keeps donking his way to the final tables.

Now, the way SC is ruining my game is by multi-tabling too many tournaments. I am just not able to play all of them well, and rely too much upon waiting for big hands, not just good opportunities. Plus, with a high "donk factor" I find that I am getting very frustrated. The temptation to join them is overwhelming at times and just can't be good for my game.

New example, guy raises with crap, I reraise with QQ and get 4 callers...unbelievable. I flop set of queens, but two spades on flop. All-in by AQ, everyone calls....two flush draws with the big stack having KJ of spades. Naturally, a spade comes on turn and the board fails to pair.

Donk Calls

Don't you just love it when you get the donk call? Playing online today, I had a fair chip count and found pocket 8's. My all-in shove was called by small blind with a Jack/five suited. He caught a jack and a 5 on the flop. Go figure. Later, another tournament my JJ shove gets called by A/8 suited. He catches an ace. Why is it that the donk with the hand that catches is the one that calls you?

Coolers

Have you ever noticed that some days you just keep running into coolers? I was playing on the final table, short handed in a big online tournament today. I was second in chips when a the third largest stack shoved. I called with 6/6 to see his K/4 offsuit. He naturally caught a king, and a 4. Now the short stack with 3 players remaining I again catch 6/6. I shove and he calls with another weak king, and again catches a king. Definitely a cooler.

Legion Success

The Friday night American Legion tournament has gotten a lot juicier. Since having to relicense in February, there is no longer a rake being taken at all, nor are the dealers given any discount. That meansthat more money goes to the winners. I started off pretty slow, with very few hands played. This is a tournament that usually sees a lot of weak limping early, but the table had some good players on it, and often it was raised preflop. My big hand came against Clydene, a player who had knocked me out a few weeks ago when she 4 bet with AK versus my AQ reraise of the initial raiser. In terms of "playing the player" the one thing I knew about her was that she often overplayed her hands, particularly immediately after taking a beat, bad or not. She had just lost a hand when I found AK suited and popped it up 3x the BB. She reraised me all-in and I insta-called. She showed down the cursed AQ offsuit. The flop was very good for me, with a king, but she caught a queen on the turn and with a 10 showing, a jack would chop/chop. With a blank on the river I knocked her out and she fled quickly (the same thing I usually do). With my double up, I was in great position and actually about 3x the original chip starting. When our table broke down I moved tables to encounter a loose cannon who should have been knocked out with my K/6 vs. Q/6 on a 7/6/3 flop and me putting him all in. But the cards ran to a straight on the board and we chopped. He was out shortly afterwards and I moved on to the final table. Making the final table with any reasonable chip stack for me is like guaranteeing a payday. They play 6 places, with 6th getting about 1 1/2 time the $40 buyin back. The final table was shorthanded since two players got knocked out at once, and there were two short stacks. The play was pretty routine, with my only scare coming from a shove with A/10 suited and the big stack going into the tank, and finally laying down what he said was AQ suited. Respect!! We finally got down to 3 of us, all online regulars and decided to give the big stack an extra $100 while we each took $260.

Grady Issues

Playing in this morning's Moose tourament I was on a major heater with pocket aces twice, a monster 3 barrel bluff against the second biggest stack, and many small pots. When it came time to chip up the green chips, I had nearly all of them on the table. Grady can be a very loose and sometimes too aggressive player, so when I raised UTG with pocket 9's to 1800 (blinds 300-600), and he reraised from the big blind to 3700, it was not too tough a call. I had position, a fairly strong hand, and had him well covered with chips. I decided immediately upon calling that if the flop was small, I was all-in. If it held an ace or king I would check/fold. The flop was unbelievable to me....Queen/9/8. When Grady checked, he made some hollywood type of comment. Normally that would set off bells for me, but I then believed that he probably had aces or kings and I did not want him to catch up with me, so I pushed all-in. He insta called with his pocket queens. Ouch, set over set. I won another pot on a push, and got back to 4000 in chips. Grady limps in with K/J and I push all in for 3000 more with QQ, Holly calls with A/9 and only 1500 in chips, then Grady calls. If she hits her ace, that is o.k. with me, but Grady manages to find a king and we are both gone. How sick is that...beaten by queens and with queens.

Donkeys, Luckboxes, sixty nine

This morning's Moose tournament was going fairly well for me. Sal knocked a player out with an all-in call with his 6/9 soooted! The other player had flopped a set of 5's. Runner runner brought a straight and Sal doubled up. Old Ray got moved to our table, fairly shortstacked and doubled up against Vickie, then the next hand he limps in with (drum roll please), 6/9 suited. I raised the 100 blind to 700 with my pocket queens. Everyone folded except Ray who called. With a 9 high flop he checks to me, I go all-in, and he calls (with only one chip remaining). A 9 on the turn seals my fate and another lucky donkey player doubles up. Unbelievable.

Last night's Omaha had mixed results for me. I 4 way chopped in the tournament for a $120 gross win (minus buy-ins and my rebate program with Bob, and dealer tip....a very small win) and lost $100 in the cash game. Great cards, bad flops.

Pair over Pair

One of the most devastating matchups you can have in poker is pair over pair. With a pair vs. overcards you are in a coinflip situation, but pairs are just very tough. This weekend I saw 3 examples of this, two in which the bottom pairs got extremely lucky. The first was unfortunately against my friend, Lynne (sorry again, Lynne). She raised in early position with pocket queens, and I re-raised with my pocket kings. She flat called and we saw the 8 high flop. Her first action was all-in and I quickly but reluctantly called, fully expecting to see aces. I was a little surprised to see queens as I thought she might even check to see how I liked the flop, then fold to an all-in (or quickly call with aces). I was surprised at the action as I do not see how she could put my big reraise at anything but aces or kings. I would never reraise with anything less. Anyway, a king on the turn sealed the hand.

The second pair over pair that day was Roland vs. "villain" on the final table at the same tournament. Roland went all-in with kings and was snap called by aces. I commented on the hand saying that I had folded a king. Roland found the case king on the river and a big stack was suddenly a short stack.

My last example was from the tournament this morning. I had 3100 in chips with blinds at 300/600 when another player announced all-in. I looked down at pocket 7's and called, leaving me one $100 chip. I was happy when he asked me if I had a pair, and he showed his pocket 6's. Sweet. The flop was low and all around both of us. The river brought a 7 for me, giving me a set, but unfortunately giving him a straight. If a 6 had come, I would have made the straight. Go figure, whoever hits their set loses, and I was over a 9 to 1 favorite. Oh, well.