LittleWyvern.com

I don’t really want to write about poker, but I’ve been playing really well lately and want to let somebody know about it. I’ll try to keep this short.

I took full advantage of my new membership to 24 Hour Fitness on Tuesday, hitting the free weights in an effort to sculpt my guns. Long story short, I think I tore part of my left bicep. It hurt a lot yesterday so I took a day off. It hurt a lot today so I took another. Unable to fully extend my arm I am forced to occupy myself with such mundane activities as watching tv, playing video games, and online poker – a rough life.

Two nights ago, just for kicks I entered into the $7,000 Guarantee tournament on Full Tilt for a $24+2 buy-in. It was my first tournament since the WSOP and after 3 hours I ended up finishing in 25th place out of 455 people. I played well enough that I only showed down two losing hands all tournament. The first was when we were down to the top 50 and I got all my money in pre-flop with pocket Kings against a smaller stack’s AK. The flop brought 3 spades, with one of my cards being the king of spades. Since my oppenent’s cards were both red he was dead to only two of the remaining 3 aces. A blank on the turn was harmless enough, but the river brought the ace of clubs and I took a pretty big hit. The last hand I played went as follows. I was about average in chips with 25 players left. I open raised the pot with an offsuit Ace Ten and was called by both blinds. To my delight the flop fell 10 Q 10. The small blind checked and the big blind decided to make a move on the hand and bet out for the size of the pot. Deciding not to get fancy I pushed in the rest of my chips. The small blind folded and the big blind was left to a decision. We were roughly equal in chips so he would need to call off almost all of his chips. And after hesitating only a moment, he did so. Our cards were flipped over to reveal… Ace Jack offsuit?! He had no hand at all, completely dead to a king. “Yikes.” he managed to type into the chat box before the remaining two cards were dealt out. The turn was harmless but the river brought his miracle king. Winning that pot rocketed the guy into the clear chip lead with only 24 people left. Although I was the one who was the 96% favorite at being the chip leader, it was the other guy who got the glory while I was sent to the rail in a somehow dissappointing 25th place. First place for that tournament paid a cool $2300, and it stung quite a bit to know how close I was to it.

I didn’t realize that I would once again come that close, and in such a short time.

While watching The Princess Bride tonight, Bill kept pestering me to enter another multi-table tournament. I wasn’t in the mood, still a bit dispirited by my finish two nights ago. Reassured that it was only bad luck that hurt me, not my playing, I decided to give it another shot. This time the tournament was Full Tilt’s $14,000 Guarantee Tournament. The larger prize pool attracted more entrants and by the time the game started there were 766 people going for the prize. Once again I managed to maneuver the field with relative ease. After a few hours time I reached the top 72 people and made it into the money. From then on, because of the payout structure, my goal shifted to making the top 18 (where the differences betweeen prizes began to matter). With 25 people left (I don’t know what the problem is with that number) I played the following hand. I was in the top 5 as far as chip counts with about 60k, only one person at my table had me covered. For the most part I had been playing the bully, raising out the blinds and stealing antes with my formidible chip stack. For once I was actually dealt a real hand, pocket queens in middle position. I opened the pot for a raise about equal to four times the big blind. The action folded around to the big blind who made the call. After making the call the big blind was left with about 30k to my 40k. The flop fell Jack-X-X (the X being a meaningless non suited little card). The big blind tried to steal the initiative by betting out about 10k. In no mood to mess around I re-raised all-in, which my opponent immediately called. I turned over my queens and he flipped up his Ace-Jack: pretty much what I expected him to have. My excitement was short lived, however, as the turn card brought an ace. Once again I had all the money in with my opponent as a huge underdog and once again caught the raw end of the deal. With the 100k pot my opponent took over as chip lead of the tournament – once again the position that I was supposed to be occupying – and I was severely crippled down to only 10k.

Through a lot of short stack maneuvering (successful enough to garner complements from the observers watching our table) I managed to hold tough while another dozen people went broke. I accomplished my goal of making the top 18, then my goal of making the top 15, and then my goal of making the top 10. However, with only ten people left, the chip counts looked roughly like this:

1st place: 250k
2nd place: 180k (the player who sucked out with the ace)
…
9th place: 90k
10th place: 12k (that was me)

There was nothing I could really do but hope for the best. As the blinds came back around to violate me for the last time I pushed all in with Ace-Queen. Sadly, the blinds were already at 2500-5000 and my minimum raise wasn’t enough to scare anyone. I was called by both the button and the big blind who then checked it down to the end. As it turned out my Ace-Queen was up against the button’s Queen-King and the big blind’s Ace-Ten. The first four cards were all small and harmless but the river brought a vicious ten, ending my tournament for good. I missed out on my final goal of reaching the final table (top 9).

I suppose that I should be very happy with a top ten finish out of nearly 800 players. The frustrating part of tournament poker, though, is that no matter how well you do or how high you finish, you always feel like crap when you lose. I can’t really complain I suppose, my luck just wasn’t there when I needed it. Or rather, the other player’s was. I should be happy that I played 4.5 hours of amazing poker and turned a healthy profit in the end. Still… two times in a row I have been knocking on the door of the prize only to be cruelly turned away. First place tonight would have brought home $4500 – hardly a bad return on a 6 hour and $26 investment. It took 2 days and $350 to accomplish nearly the same thing at Bally’s.

I should take solace in the realization that I have been playing absurdly well, bad luck aside. Maybe I’ll give it another go tomorrow or the next day. Until then I suppose I will just hold my shattered left bicep and dream of what could have been.

(so much for keeping the post short)