Well, things didn't go very well at the Wednesday night tourney at the casino. Surprise, surprise. The blinds escalate just way too fast to play patient, serious poker. We started with 6 tables of 10 players each. $T2000 in chips. Blinds start at 50/100 and go up from there every fifteen minutes, which means about every 9-10 hands is all you get at any particular level. It feels like an online turbo tourney on steroids, but with misdeals, smoke, and casino critters with BO to add to the atmosphere.
I saw about fifty hands in total, with NOTHING playable, save my last two cards. More on that later. Up until then, talk about card dead. I think the best hand I was dealt was J9-suited. But that's okay, I kept telling myself. Good cards were due me any moment, plus I was managing to steal the blinds and stay ahead of the curve. I think I stole 3 times from the cutoff and once from the button with absolute garbage hands. I played situations more than I played my cards-- just like guru Mark says you're supposed to do.
So that's all fine. I mean, I knew what to expect and it was exactly like I thought it was going to be. What made me mad (at myself), however, was how I went out: we were down to 18 players (they pay the top 10). I was in the small blind. Blinds were 300/600 and I had 1500 in chips after I posted my SB. Not so great, but certainly enough to hang around a while longer and take a shot at making the final table.
So, it folds around to the big stack on the button, who calls. He doesn't raise, just limps. My radar instantly goes up, especially since I saw him raise the cut-off a few laps earlier. Hmmm. I put him on a big ace or something like big connectors , but it could also have been something bigger, like a large pocket pair, too, and he was laying a trap. But then I look down and see KQo. My radar instantly evaporates and all I can think is: Wow! A playable hand!
The guy to my left in the BB looked like he was going to fold until it was folded to the button, so I put him on a big nothing.
So what did I do? I raised all-in. Immediately. Without thinking.
Dumb.
The BB folded, but the button pauses for a few seconds and then finally says, "It only costs me an an extra 1200 to play? I call." He turns up ATo, the board comes blanks, and he takes the pot with Ace high.
If he had been a small or medium stack, I would have probably gotten him to lay down his cards with my push. But he had me covered by a factor of six or so. Relatively to his stack and the situation, I was giving him a decent price to call, which he did of course.
OF COURSE!
He had to call. If I had simply stopped to think about his stack size prior to pushing, I would have played it differently. Probably/maybe/possibly I would/should have just called and saw the flop for 300, leaving me with 1200 in chips. I was going to get the button next hand, and could have seen at least 8 or 9 more hands before the blinds hit again if I didn't get any piece of the flop. We were down to 18, and I just had to outlast 8 more players on two tables to make the dough. Lots of small stacks, too, so I had a real shot of making the money. But all I was thinking was, "Hey, I finally got two playable cards! Let's go!"
Like I said, dumb.
The lesson? Slow down and think before acting. Why can't I seem to master that simple concept?
Oh, and Bret busted out too. Too bad, as I had a 5% piece of him if he'd monied again. He got moved to my table with a relatively short stack of about $T1400 near the end. He had to post the BB, which he folded to a raise (I think) and then posted the SB, leaving him with 800 or so in chips. Two callers, in front of him, and he pushed with A5s. I think he should have mucked (against two players; against 1, the push was probably correct) or at least just completed the SB and seen the flop as cheaply as possible. Check folding on the blank flop would have given him 8 hands or so more before he blinded out. He's always saying to me, "don't commit all your chips unless you have to or you have the nuts."
He died in 20th place. I think he should have picked a better spot to push, and maybe try to outlast some more players. Maybe. He argues that it was a decent hand and he had a shot at winning with it. Dunno.
In any case, it was all quick and painful and irritating. Gotta love this cruel game. They say the next best thing to playing poker and winning is playing poker and losing. Maybe, but it's not a close second, not by a long shot.
That's All-in for now.
-Bug
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