Out of the $5,200

Jesus I got screwed today! The last 4 hands of my tournament sum it up (there may have been one or two others in there, but if not 4 in a row these were a tight cluster). I get KK, raise and everyone folds. I get AJs I raise and everyone folds. I get JJ I raise and get called by 64s in the big blind. The board is all cards ten and under and I lose to a straight. With my last 500 chips I raise with KQ suited, it gets three bet and capped before getting back to me. I go all in and lose to AJ.

It was all either no action or get action and lose. I played just over 250 hands in this one and only won 25. You can't win 1 in 10 hands playing 6 handed (some of the time we were 4 or 5 handed) and expect to do anything but go broke.

This tournament was so annoying! AHHHHH!

Cold Decked in the SCOOP!

I've been running really bad today. Bad cards, bad beats, and a little bad play have left me out of everything...except for the $5,200 limit tournament.

We started with 5,000 chips and I was just about all in at one point (if I'd lost a specific pot I'd have been down to about 100 chips). I ran it back to 4,400, but now I have 3,100 which is not great. I'm going to do whatever I can to get back into the mix, but I'm not feeling great about my chances.

SCOOP Update

I took my second and last shot at getting into the $10,300 main event. Today pokerstars offered a $797 qualifier that was for supernova's only. On top of splitting the prize money into $10,300 blocks they also added $10,300 from the pokerstars coffers as a gift to the supernovas. 44 people played and I needed to make the top 4 to win a seat or the top 7 to pick up $1,600, but I came up short.

Event #19 $530 (719 entrants) and $55 (3,283 entrants) Pot Limit Omaha is underway, but event #20 is the one I've really been looking forward to - 6 handed limit hold'em!!! We're looking at $55, $530 and my biggest event of the SCOOP $5,200! Let's do this thing! To the house!

Early Exit

I busted out of the $215 with one rebuy and one add-on in about 45 minutes. I'd already had a few things go against me so I was in bad shape, but on the final hand I got AK vs AA, the AA just called my preflop raise and the flop came down king high. Nothing to do there, but go broke! Chalk up -$415.

$425 8-game Result

I finished 27th of 444 in the $425 buy in 8-game mixed. On the final hand I had 68,000 chips (we started with 5,000 and at my peak I had 122,000), we were playing 1,000/2,000 blind no limit hold'em and I raised to 6,000 from the button with AJ. The small blind made it 17,000 and I moved all in. When the cards got tuned over he had KK and I missed.

This is one of those hands where when you move all in and the other guy folds you think "Ah ha! Making strong plays is great!" and when you get called and lose you think "Man, maybe I could have let that one go!"

Part of me feels a little disappointed. I had a good stack, deep in this one, my opposition was OK, but not great, and other than the one hand I mentioned in a previous post I was playing great. Coming withing a few spot of the final table yesterday in the razz, and getting close again today feels like a real tease. Also I really felt like I was going to make the money in the $4,175.

The other part of me (the logical part) can acknowledge that I am having GREAT results in these tournaments. It should not be easy to get so close to a final table, and I already have one final table, and a few close calls in a pretty small group of tournaments. I am playing some of the best poker I ever have and it's paying off.

Anyway 27th paid $1,154. Tomorrow I have $22 and $215 NLH each with one rebuy and one add-on and $55 limit Omaha hi-lo. Nothing major.

A Stupid Terrible Play

I just made one of the worst plays I can remember making. We were playing pot limit Omaha and I got dealt KKQ8 with the KQ of hearts in the big blind. The blinds were 400/800 and the button who had a little over 100K made it 2,800 to go. I reraised the maximum to 8,800 leaving another 35K in my stack.

Now here is where the bonehead maneuver came in. My opponent made it the maximum which was 26,800. The only thing he could possibly have here is AAxx which would mean at best I'm about a 2 to 1 underdog and at worst a 4 to 1 underdog (I didn't actually know it was that bad, but I've since done some research).

This was an obvious fold. But for some reason I lost my mind and moved all in. My opponent instantly called with AA74 with the A4 of diamonds making me 33% to win.

Amazingly I flopped a king and took down a nice pot. Even though it worked out I feel like a real dunce.

The good news is I have about 80,000 chips and I'm in 7th of 43.

Out in the $4,175

I had two big hands go against me in the Stud and that was all it took. In the first I made a straight and lost to a flush (that was an 11,000 chip pot). That left me on fumes and somehow I got the rest of my chips in with a pair of sevens against rolled up aces! ACK!

I finished 23rd which was a fair showing. I know I played well and if they offered this tournament tomorrow I'd play it again. That's the real sign that playing this event was a good decision even though it resulted in a loss.