Now granted, the above hand wasn’t the hand that knocked me
out of the tournament yesterday; however it was the hand that crippled me
beyond repair. Don’t rightly recall
whether this was during level 1 or 2 but I do rightly recall that I was
eliminated prior to level 2 completing.
There’s really not much worse than getting crippled so early in a
tournament. Granted, the blinds are
still relatively small, but the path ahead to success is so long that you’re
going to have to do something to re-build your stack quickly else blinding-out
becomes an issue as the blinds steadily increase. For you see, everyone else sitting at your
table notices your situation and they’re most definitely going to make you pay
to see anything. You’re forced to rely
on pure luck in this situation; and luck and I don’t seem to be getting along
these days…
So I headed back this morning (well, noon, actually) to see
if I could redeem myself. I was not
going to make any bone-head, amateur mistakes today. I was going to play smart and let my skills
overcome the issue I’m having with luck.
That was the plan… If you
continue reading, you’ll discover how well it worked for me. Spoiler alert: it didn’t!
As seems to be standard with me, the hand that crippled me
today came early as well. It was in
level 2 where the blinds were a mere 100/200.
That’s quite small in these “deep stack” tournaments as each player
starts the game with 15,000 in chips. As
it was only level 2, both me and my nemesis where approximately hovering around
that starting stack-size. I was dealt a
K-J, posh – both hearts. I was also
sitting on the button which, of course, gave me final play for any action
post-flop. Everyone else folded around
to me so I decided to put a bit of pressure on the blinds and made a standard
raise to 600. This, of course, steals
the blinds (granted, a mere 300) if neither call; however it also gives me information
if either chooses to make the call.
Granted, this early, and with the blinds being as small as they are, the
information obtained isn’t very meaningful; however you’re pretty certain that
your complete garbage hands won’t be making the call. It’s just not worth risking 6 times or 3
times your already forced bet for a chance to win such a small pot. The small blind folded. The big blind called.
So now there’s 1,300 in the pot. I’m sitting with a K-J of hearts and my
opponent is sitting with an A-10 of diamonds.
Of course I did not know that he was sitting with that hand but, to help
clarify the story for you, the reader, I’m going to let you know early what I
was up against. It was an A-10 of
diamonds.
My opponent, however, does not know what I am holding and
needs to make his decisions based on “his” hand alone. As I said, his hand is also pretty
decent. He’s already got a made hand of
second pair with the 10’s. He most
likely also believes that he’s got outs with the two 10’s that would make him a
set as well as the three A’s that would give him 2-pair. Of course we already know that the A’s are
bad for him as they fill my straight; however he is not aware of this. He also might be able to see that he’s got a
slim chance (approximately 1-in-25) of drawing the runner-runner diamonds to
complete his nut flush. As a matter of
fact, many players over-value this rarity and play it as if it were destined to
happen. These players are correctly
designated as the “donkeys.” They can be
dangerous at times… He does, however,
have the pair of 10’s and decides to bet 1,100 – basically a pot-sized bet.
Now, since I pretty much know where I stand here – even if
he flopped a set, I’m still a 3-to-2 advantage at drawing a hand that beats him
– I min-raise the bet to 2,200. This
should give him some pause with his second pair. I just raised his pot-sized bet on a flop
with a Q and two hearts. He thinks about
this raise for a minute or so and then calls.
So now the pot’s at 5,700.
The turn is then dealt – a 9 of diamonds. Interestingly enough, my opponent decides to check
his bet here. Most likely it was because
of my raise on the flop. Perhaps he was
concerned that I might have hit a straight with that 9 (which, of course, I did
– the nut straight) and didn’t want to risk betting his pair of 10’s again even
though he was also now looking at a river-draw to the nut flush. Or, as it probably actually was, he was trying
to set a trap for me. It’s only a 20%
chance to draw the flush; however donkeys are donkeys – why worry about
probabilities…?
Without any thought, whatsoever, he calls my 3,000 chip bet. So the pot has now grown to 11,700 and the
river is dealt – a fucking K of diamonds!
I mean sweet Jesus, no worse card could have been played. Now I get to worry about both the flush and
the “Broadway” beating what was, prior to the river, my nut straight. It’s here that my opponent bets 6,600.
I find this bet interesting as it is the perfect bet to justify
his call of my 3,000 on the turn if he were drawing for the flush. It basically gives him his needed 5-to-1
payout on his 1-in-5 odds. It’s also an
excellent bluff for the exact same reason.
After contemplating this for a bit and concluding that an A-J would not
have thrown a pot-sized bet on the flop and that my flop raise and turn bet
would have gotten rid of any non-donkey runner-runner draws, I incorrectly make
the call. Boom! Just like that, I’m crippled … sitting with
less than 1/3 my starting stack as those around me are steadily chipping up.
I was able to survive a bit into level 5; even managed to
grow my stack back to near 18,000 for a bit.
In the end though, it wasn’t enough.
The tilt the above hand put me on was too much for me to get over. I don’t know … seems to me that I’m playing a
constant tilt. It’s this damn curse, I
tell ya!
bis später,
Coriolis
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