Sahra 11 am tournament
52 Players.
5th Place, but I still got fucking screwed.
It’s been a while since my last report. I have cashed in 2 out 3 of the tournaments that I have not yet to report. And my cashing streak over the last six tournaments, 4/6 or 67%. Not too bad. Any at this early morning tournament, I played a fairly ABC game, and it got me to the money. However, I still think that I need to mix it up a lot more to be really successful. I did steal a pot early in the tournament, but slowed down after pocket 3,3s almost killed me. I was forced to play kind of short stack as a result of my crazy pocket pair play.
Early in the tournament and position, I look down at 3,3s and fire off a 400 raise. Blinds were 50/100, I think. Three callers behind me call the 400 raise, and that really sucks my dick, I think. The flop was terrible for me, just terrible. A,K,10—two were suited, if I remember correctly. I am first to act, and I should have checked and given up to any raise, but I thought I’d get cute. Thought, I’d mix it up. So I fire off a bet of 1,200 and got two callers. Fuck, I think. How fucking stupid was this play? Real stupid. One of those players hit the flop, no question, but I thought that maybe with the straight out on the board, I might be able to scare them out of the pot, all the callers. But now I have two behind me and I just donkeyed off 1,200. Man that was stupid because there is no way I can call any bets. The turn was a Q, which was an even better card to sink my stupid, piece-of-shit-threes. So I checked with my testicles shrinking under the stupidity of my play and sure enough, a bet came and I checked out. However, despite this donkey play, I did recover and made it to the money.
So now I was short stacked and playing that way. In fact, I think that is the strongest part of my game now-playing short stacked. I was in the small blind, and I looked down at pocket 7,7. As you know from my earlier posts, I play middle pair 90% of the time one way. “All-in, bitch,” I think as I push all my chips forward. The big folds and the button hems-and-haws but eventually calls. So I flip over my sevens, and he turns over J,10. What? Jack fucking ten! What an idiot. Honestly that was in my opinion, a horrible call, even though he was roughly a coin flip. He had no way of knowing and at best, as was the case here, he was a coin flop--at worst a much bigger dog. He did not have a made hand. My hand did hold up and the Mexican went on tilt, moving all-in the next several hands—he was eventually picked off, like apples from a tree.
The Tattooed Swede: There was a Swede at the table with a tattoo that ran the length of his right arm. He was wearing a tank top with a stylish leather vest over it. I assumed that he was a fisting gay sadomasochist, expect he had a roomy girl chat with him about marital-esque things: money, or the room key. His tattoo was one of those tribal designs that resembled meandering lines coming to a gradual point. Fucking stupid tattoos, if you ask me. To what tribe does this guy belong—the Vikings. I knew he was from Sweden because someone asked him. He looked like a Swede, too. Thin, pointy nose, pale skin, etc.
This guy was so lucky. However, he failed to raise pocket pairs and made bad calls all night. For example, he did not raise QQ and allowed several players into the pot. The board had flush and straight possibilities, but no one in the hand hit. He simply called down to the river. He did not pre-flop raise. Another time he flopped Broadway and checked all the way down, even though flush possibilities were present.
The Tattooed Swede had a huge stack initially. But he eventually busted out. He made several terrible calls, and it eventually caught up with him. He did, however, make it far and doubled up several times. He was like fucking herpes or something. Would not go the fuck away.
Chipping up but not for Less: At specific levels, the house chips up the chip stacks. For example, they will remove the 25/green chips; next the 100/white chips and sp on. The problem is that getting chipped up makes your stack seem small, like one’s pool chilled penis. Anyway, I thought it a good idea to count my stack and not panic—still the same amount. It seems as though when I have less chips, because there are not as many physical chips—not as many to shuffle, etc, that this causes me to push in with marginal hands when I really did not need to. It causes me to play with a short stack mentality unnecessarily. This awareness helped keep me in the tournament, even though I wanted to push for all my chips a few times, but really did not need to.
A Key hand late helped me to the money—it pushed me there. I am the small blind, and I have K/3. A shit hand really but because I am already committed, I call the big blind and there are three to the pot. If there are no raisers, I always complete the big blind bet from the small blind—always no matter what I have.
It was late in the tournament with, say, 12/13 people left. Flop is K,4,5-last two hearts, so I look down to my to pair of Kinks, nothing 3 and push all-in. I am first to act, so I want to push all draws out and hope that someone else does not have a better king—a little risky. The big blind folds, but the long hair, dirty/crooked teeth, from, I assume, the Dirty South, debates. He is the kind of guy that develops pools of small bubbly salvia at the corners of his him—Yum. He calls with A,6 hearts. I wish I could remember exactly what the amount was, but he had more chips. I think it might have been 12,000 or something. So a nice bet, and it really crippled him.
After the flop, I am a coin flip, and I think “heads, let it come heads.” He has many outs—all the hearts, plus any Ace-12 outs. I think it was the right call for him to make at that time. I won the coin flip and doubled up. Sometimes, you just can’t get unlucky. I was good at that until we got to the final table.
The Money By Attrition: So finally I made it to the final table and counted my chips -30,000. Not bad. Enough to play with here. However, I went completely card dead and could not do much. And at this point, antes are being collected. So a few circuits around the table and I am getting a little short. I can’t take chances because there is always all-in action pre-flop or on the flop. Everyone is pushing. I outlast a few players and eventually get to the money. Attrition. The money by attrition.
So eventually, I get to the point that I have to push since my chip stack was too small. I was in the money, but really wanted to move up. First place was 1,000 bucks. For a $40 tournament, that’s pretty good with only 52 players and second was 700. But, alas, no fucking luck. What can you do?
I look down at A,4 with just the button left to act and push all-in. The big blind calls with his big stack. The right call, but sucks for me. He turns over K,Q off. A good enough hand to call, given his chip stack. Of course, a queen comes and sends me home in 5th place. One fifty for a 40$ tournaments is nothing to sneeze at, but still, still would have liked to move up.
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