Sitting around yesterday, "practicing" online for the Legion tournament I ended up getting very deep in 3 tournaments. Playing heads up for the one seat in a $500 tournament we went back and forth forever, but my luck finally prevailed when I flopped two pair and he flopped an open ender with a flush draw. Betting big, he called and hit his straight on the turn. Unbelievably I hit my full house on the river. Hooray for me!
Anyway, not really watching the clock pictured above, I sat around chatting with wifey for a bit and even though had volunteered for dealing duty felt no urge to leave, even though it started at 7:00 and the clock said 7:05. Why you ask? We had some discussion about the correctness of the time, and I had noticed that it was an hour fast (never got reset from "fall back" daylight time). But, had also not noticed that wifey had reset it. Oops. Fortunately decided to go to the Legion "early" and was totally surprised to walk in and see the tournament in full action. After profusely apologizing to Mary, the organizer, I took my seat, sheepishly.
There were some real rookies at my table, which always makes things interesting. I watched a very nervous, very pretty young lady who admitted to "reviewing hold 'em rules, etc on the drive there" and had in her possession a cheat sheet on what beats what totally rack up chips merely calling with the immortals. Anyone else would have knocked two players out. Anyway, she had accumulated some chips, which she cheerfully refunded at every opportunity with horrible calls. So, I won a couple of pots and had about the same number of chips when this hand came up. Sitting 2 under the gun, the UTG player, an Asian kid I had never seen before with face tattoos and seemingly good poker skills raised to 3 times the blinds. I looked down to discover pocket aces. I re-raised 3 times his bet to isolate, and the lady comes along too. The flop was A/Q/10, and the UTG bets all-in, which I re-raised all-in. The lady calls. He shows Q/J for second pair plus a gutshot. She has Q/10 for 2 pair which is drawing dead. My aces hold up and eliminate both players.
After donking off about a third of my chips to loose callers who cannot lay a hand down, I settle down, tighten up and make the final table in good chip condition. I read a game changing email this week about tournaments. It told the story of a couple who attended a poker training camp because they never cashed in tournaments. After attending, they were happy to report that they were now cashing consistently, but not winning. Their coach told them that was bad news. The math of it works out that unless you win tournaments, you will usually be a net loser. One $1000 win is a lot of buy-ins which you usually never make up with 4th place finishes.
Anyway, I decided to play with more aggression and the attitude that one big win is worth more than a lot of little wins. Happy to report that I chopped 3 ways last night ($280 each on a $40 buyin, less $25 dealer tip, netting $215). This was despite a late in the game disastrous hand becoming the short stack (A/4 vs my 7/7). Ended up chip leader (I think....it was very close). With 2/4000 blinds and only $65000 in chips in play no-one had more that 5 big blinds. Excellent decision by us to chop as luck now the only factor.
1 comment:
Self comment: Ran into the lady I knocked out of tournament. Turns it she is the girlfriend of someone I know. They were in the bakery this morning together. Didn't put two and two together. Also, managed to work in an insult about HR, which she is a manager.
Post a Comment