A little poker for a change

As I have mentioned in previous posts, I have been playing a lot less poker over the last month or so. I can't really say why other than I needed to do something with my life other than play poker 5 nights a week and on the weekends.

I decided to play in a $10+1 tourny on Sunday at PokerRoom. PokerRoom has always had a sweet spot in my heart as I have made my best wins there. The biggest was a $1600 win earlier this year (I think it was this year).

Part of the attraction, I think, is the level of play is not quite as good as PokerStars. This makes it slightly easier to do well.

Anyway, as I was saying, I got into a 518 person, $10+1 tourny there on Sunday. I wasn't really getting any cards, and I usually play reasonably tight in those circumstances. I made it past the 1st break with less than average chips. As the game progressed, I was slowly getting chipped away at until I got to that point where you have to stand up and be counted, one way or the other.

I actually survived that phase and when we crossed the 100 people remaining boundary, I was in around 30th place or so. Unfortunately my cards turned a little better. You know, when you are getting bad cards, it is easy to play tight and avoid any confrontations. You only lose big, when you have big cards (and the other guys has bigger).

In this case, I had AQo - not great, but certainly better than what I had been seeing. The bad guy raises to 3 or 4 BB and I call. The flop comes Qxx rainbow and I bet out about pot sized (realising that I was pot committed if he called). He raises enough to put me all-in and I call. He turns over JJ and my Queens are looking really nice. Of course the turn comes a Jack and I am out in 90th place. The money started at 60th place.

This is not a bad beat story (it only sounds like it). I was quite happy that I had made it that far and lost to a 2 outer. (well, I wasn't THAT happy).

I took a small break, and then tried another tourny with much, much worse results (but it took a lot less time).

So that was it for Sunday. I got home yesterday from work and after a couple beer, decided I would look for more poker (I am not sure that is a good idea). Around 830pm, I found a $20+2 tourny about to start. There was 128 people to start, so it looked easier than the 518 from Sunday (hah).

Like Sunday my cards sucked and I chipped away at my starting stack. Nothing spectacular by the 1st break. I was in 17th out of 42 remaining . Nothing scary by this point, just a little blind (and pot stealing) and playing it tight.

The game tightened up considerably and somewhere in this hour, I found myself with pocket Kings. This was my best starting hand in a long, long time and I decided to play it fairly cool with a 3BB raise. I was in fairly good standing with lots of chips (2nd at my table) and not overly threatened by anyone. One player decides to call. The flop comes xQA rainbow. The other guy bets about 1/2 his stack (which I think was less than pot sized) and I think about it for a second then I clicked all-in! Oops - serious brain fart or something as that was not the way I wanted to play this. Of course he had an Ace, which held up and I was now hurting. We were at that point of the tourny where you can go from last to first and back again without trying hard. I was now in 17th out of 18. Because of the tight play, and big blinds, everyone was really close in chips and any move was significant.

I did however manage to squeak out some more steals and grind my way back to 4th out of 13th place standing at the break. Only the final table paid and we were in hand for hand play trying to break that bubble.

The tight play continued past the bubble and finally we were in the money (not that it was that much). I was about middle of the pack with 2-3 players with less than me when I called an all-in by the short stack with A9o. I figured he was desperate and it "seemed" a good idea at the time.
One of the big stacks called the all-in after me. The flop came 97x and I checked on the big stack bet 4k. Given this was 2/3 the pot, and it would definitely pot commit me if I called, I thought about it and decided to fold (cursing the big that he had better have this guy beaten). It turned out that they both ended up with the same straight and split. So at this point, I was the only loser and now the new short stack.

The next hand, I got JQ and decided that 2 face were as good as it was going to get before the blinds (at 1k-2k) were going to get the money anyway. I pushed and was called by an AQ. I don't recall what happened other than I didn't improve and went out in 7th for $128. Not bad, but it just seemed very disappointing in that I didn't play as well as I had hoped.

Oh well, it was fun. ;-)

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On another note (if you are still reading this far down), don't forget the WWdN: Not this week.

What: WWdN: Not The Anithri Invitational
Where: Pokerstars
When: Thursday, August 31th, 7:30PM PT
Which: Tournament: 30611882
Cost: $10+1 NLHE
Password: monkey