The Pro, The Pal, and The Cockroach

The Wednesday tournament went well for me.  I have been very close to "quitting poker forever" because my luck has been so sour.  So, much to my surprise pairs were holding up against draws and overcards were hitting against pairs in those critical coin tosses.  Had some great matchups to eliminate players (my AK vs. AQ for example), and doubled up by the first break, always important. Making the final table, we got down to 4 players.  The pro had a huge stack, my pal had the second largest, about the size of mine, and the cockroach (really a very nice man), was running on fumes with no more than 1 or 2 blinds.

He doubled up through me 3 times, shoving just a little more than the big blind (me) and winning each time.  He tripled up once when another player also entered the pot.  Just could not get rid of him. Four place were being paid, with the 4th spot $80, twice the entry fee, so with no bubble and a very short stack at the table, the pro was raising frequently using his big stack to intimidate.

My friend was on my left, and I could not win against his big blind, and threw away trash hands maybe 6 times in a row, finally raising with 5/7 out of frustration.  Call.  Lose.  Finally the cockroach is eliminated and I find A/9 against my nemesis.  I raise, he re-raises a large amount that he thought put me all-in.  He did not see that I had about 1600 left, and when I called, he immediately turned over K/K.  With blinds at 300/600 and the pot at 10,000, and only 1600 behind, I almost called the queen high flop even knowing what I was against.  You could say that I was pot committed but decided to fold anyway.  The call of his re-raise was my worst decision of the night, what was I thinking I could beat? The fold turned out to be a good decision as after 3 or 4 called shoves (maniac mode) we ended up in a very close 3 way tie in chips.  The decision was made to chop chop and we each got $225 (19 players).