Avoiding a Win

Sometimes I seem hellbent on avoiding an easy win.  That was the case this week in back to back tournaments.  The first one was the Wednesday bounty tournament.  True to form I made the final table, cashing in my own plus one more $10. bounty.  Great, that would normally put me in the money as the final table usually gets buy in back.  However, there were only 29 players rather than the typical 40 plus, so only 5 spots paid.  3 players were eliminated and there were a couple of short stacks sweating it when this hand came up.  I am in the big blind for 2000 with folds to the small blind who min-raises.  My stack was at least 12k so I defended with Q/J.  The raiser is a very good player, also chip leader, and had folded his small blind to me twice in a row, so pretty tight.  The flop came out J/9/8 giving me top pair with gutshot straight draw.  He bet big and I foolishly and quickly shoved.  He turned over K/K leaving me with 9 outs.  A king on the turn changed nothing and the river bricked.  Sadly, I could have folded my way into the $65 fifth place money.

Thursday was not as good.  Arriving early found a seat in the $3/6 game.  Bought in for $100, and soon ran it up to $180.  Got a lot of pairs which hit sets and full houses.  Took a couple of losses and cashed out for a net $45. win, basically freerolling the tournament.  My cards cooled off and unlike my usual play took too many risks and bluffed off half my chips in one hand.  I am constantly amazed at the poor play in these turbos where people call raises with garbage, limp constantly, and call very light.  Just the nature of the beast I fear.  Last hand, only 3 big blinds, I limp with A/9 and call a big raise from the small blind who unfortunately has 9/9.  He even manages to find the case 9 on the river.

So, two day total was a $25. loss.  Not earth shaking but a loss nonetheless.  Tighter play would have seen much better results.