Lately I've been playing more tournaments, for three primary reasons:
- My luck has been terrible.
- My ring game skills have gone to hell in a hand basket. (I have yet to shake habit of letting bad luck turn me into The Incredible Dulk (like the Hulk, only more like a Donkey.)
- My bankroll has been bleeding like an extra in a Roger Corman film.
Tournaments have the following characteristics that help me in my time of distress:
- After the first couple of hands, a large percentage of the "wheee!!!" all- in- or- bust- oh- wait- that- should- be- an- "and"- eventually- shouldn't- it? crowd is bitching to themselves about not catching their three-outer, and not ramping up the variance for everyone else.
- Tournaments reward a focus on playing the cards and not the ROI of the cards. Which makes it easier to lay down good hands that are probably winners and focus on looking for hands that are truly solid.
- Tourneys have a built-in stop-loss; you don't make the money, you've lost your buy-in. Period.
And I have been doing very well in tourneys the last few days. In that time I've:
- Finished 22nd in a 12,000 person NLHE Hubble's Hold'em freeroll tourney, earning a ticket to a tourney with a $2,000 prize pool.
- Finished in the top 200 in a 2900 player tourney (play was suspended at that point) to win a ticket to a second qualifier which in itself was a qualifier to a tourney with the prize of a seat at the National Heads-Up Championship.
- Finished 59th (9 away from winning a ticket, dammit) out of 2369 runners in that qualifier.
(Thank you, les4316 and Clemens22, for following the tournament. You both probably brought me luck.)
It's been an active few days, so I didn't take my shot at the Weekly Round 2 today; I'll wait until next weekend to see if I can turn that ticket into real cash. If I play as well then as I have been lately, that's not an unreasonable hope.
Anyway, there'll be a post tomorrow about the bone-headed play that cost me a chance at playing in the National Heads-Up Championship, but I want to publish the last hand I played, and discuss my logic.
PokerStars Game #15502580723: Tournament #74718308,
Freeroll Hold'em No Limit - Level XVIII (3000/6000) - 2008/02/23 - 19:04:23 (ET)
Table '74718308 44' 9-max Seat #4 is the button
Seat 1: lady32 (31293 in chips)
Seat 2: greedie1 (62539 in chips)
Seat 3: jomofoo (23622 in chips)
Seat 4: 2golf18 (31751 in chips)
Seat 5: EKD1 (20044 in chips)
Seat 6: PutzinAround (119467 in chips)
Seat 8: phantommut (27161 in chips)
Seat 9: dmcnett13 (22138 in chips)
lady32: posts the ante 600
greedie1: posts the ante 600
jomofoo: posts the ante 600
2golf18: posts the ante 600
EKD1: posts the ante 600
PutzinAround: posts the ante 600
phantommut: posts the ante 600
dmcnett13: posts the ante 600
EKD1: posts small blind 3000
PutzinAround: posts big blind 6000
*** HOLE CARDS ***
Dealt to phantommut [
]
phantommut: calls 6000
dmcnett13: folds
lady32: folds
greedie1: folds
jomofoo: folds
2golf18: folds
EKD1: folds
PutzinAround: raises 6000 to 12000
phantommut: raises 14561 to 26561 and is all-in
PutzinAround: calls 14561
*** FLOP *** [
]
*** TURN *** [ ] [
]
*** RIVER *** [ ] [
]
*** SHOW DOWN ***
PutzinAround: shows [9h Tc] (two pair, Nines and Deuces)
phantommut: shows [Jc Ah] (a pair of Deuces)
PutzinAround collected 60922 from pot
*** SUMMARY ***
Total pot 60922 | Rake 0
Board [ ]
Seat 1: lady32 folded before Flop (didn't bet)
Seat 2: greedie1 folded before Flop (didn't bet)
Seat 3: jomofoo folded before Flop (didn't bet)
Seat 4: 2golf18 (button) folded before Flop (didn't bet)
Seat 5: EKD1 (small blind) folded before Flop
Seat 6: PutzinAround (big blind) showed [
] and won (60922) with two pair, Nines and Deuces
Seat 8: phantommut showed [ ] and lost with a pair of Deuces
Seat 9: dmcnett13 folded before Flop (didn't bet)
At the time this hand started, I had about 28,000 chips, giving me less than the cost of three full orbits (Blinds and antes were 6000/3000/500). My tournament position was around 45 or 46 with 50 spots getting tickets. In short, I wasn't at all sure that I could fold my way to a ticket.
Ace Jack offsuit was about as good a hand as I had seen in about a half hour. I was under the gun, but everyone except PutzinAround was playing extremely tight, and Puttzin was buying every pot, so I figured he was playing pretty much any two.
So what I decided to do was limp in, watch everyone fold to Puttz, who would put in a token raise, which I would then push on.
.Which is exactly what happened. I limped, it folded around to Puttz who min-raised, and I pushed. So far perfect.
I figured he'd most likely fold (adding a much-needed 19K from the blinds and antes to my stack) but if he didn't I would be at worst ahead, or at least strongly favored.
He called holding Nine Ten offsuit. Definitely the type of hand I expected. The Mutt is a two-to-one favorite over the Puttz. (FWI, I had both his suits dominated, so the dreaded four-flush wasn't an issue. Score!)
Flop was a good-looking Two Three Two. Turn is a much feared Nine. River is a brick and Mutt goes out with a whimper.
Still, I'm extremely happy with my analysis of what the possibilities were in the hand. Sure, I could have pushed pre-flop, and maybe I should have. Maybe he folds to that, though I actually think the limp/push represents a stronger hand. So in terms of pokerthink, I'm good with where I was.
And yeah, it burned at the time that I went out so close to the prize, but in retrospect I'm glad I pushed with the hand I felt would win, instead of being forced into a corner and having to push with whatever I happened to catch in a later blind. I'd rather lose with smart aggression than lose with smart submission.
Of course, without my earlier alluded-to boneheaded play, I could have been in coast mode at that point with at least 50K. So the Mutt isn't entirely pleased with Saturday afternoon's performance. But that's for the next post.