I literally felt physically ill after busting out of this tournament. That was probably in no small part due to the fact that I’d slept badly the night before, spent the whole day teaching and running around doing other things to keep the BDL summer institute going, and then played poker until 2:30 AM, with the knowledge that I needed to be up at 6:30 this morning. And of course my only regret is that I wasn’t playing longer.
It was the $1000 6-max FTOPS tournament, an event too good to pass up for something as trivial as sleep. I got off to a bad start, not playing partiuclarly well, and ended up shoving A7 into an UTG limper who turned out to have AA. T77 flop and I am back in business. After that I played pretty well, eventually getting it in for a pretty unavoidable AQ vs KK match-up in which I sucked out once again.
That got me up around average, and at that point I felt I played extremely well for a few critical hours. My rush started with me raising QTs UTG. The SB called, and the flop came Q44. He checked and called a bet. Against a certain type of intelligent opponent, it’s better to bet than to check here, but I convinced myself that random tournament monkeys are not game theory gurus, so I checked. The river was a blank, and he check called a big bet with a losing hand that I didn’t even get to see because I got moved to a new table. But the river is such a bad time to bluff that he really shouldn’t be looking me up light at all, whereas the turn is a good spot to bluff and hence a good spot for him to call again with an underpair.
First hand at the new table, I get A9 in my BB. A big stack raises from the button, another big stack calls from the SB, and I decided just to shove my whole stack in, even though it was more than 10x the raise. I did think I would have the best hand very often, but a smaller squeeze could induce a re-shove that I did not want to see.
I took down the pot, and then a few hands later opened to 4500 with AJs in the CO. The button called, and the SB reraised to 16,000. I shoved for about 50K, and he tanked, saying he had 55, and finally folded.
A few hands later, I got JJ in the SB, and the CO (who had been button the first time I squeezed), open raised. I knew how insane my image looked, so I 3-bet, fully expecing him to shove a wide range. Sure enough, he shipped me a boat load of chips with 75o, and just like that I was in 2nd place overall.
I lot one pot to the tool with 55 who made a little raise against my BB. I called with KTs, and the flop came K98 with two clubs (I had diamonds). We bot checked, and the turn brought a second heart. I lead out, hoping he would shove on me with a draw, but he made a sketchy smaller raise instead. I decided not to believe him, but he called my shove with AK. Ugh, what an atrocious monkey-esque way to play that. Thankfully it wasn’t a huge pot, and I was still in good shape.
The table was super-aggressive, and I eventually got back into second when someone shoved into my Aces with 7’s. At this point we were down to the final four tables, and I was in amazing shape. But I went on to play really badly, raising J6s on the button against a tight player in the BB. The SB, who seemed pretty decent, called. Flop was K97, and he called my bet. Turn T to give me a gut shot, he check-called again. The river was a J, and for some reason I convinced myself I could value bet. He almost folded KQ, so I guess I was bluffing, but mostly I was just hemorrhaging chips.
The next orbit, I raised K7o from my SB, and the same guy called in the BB. Flop was like K84, I bet, he raised, I shoved, he called with K5s. Obviously we’re going to chop very often here, and I was prepared for that. The turn was the 4c, pairing the board but giving my opponent a flush draw that he hit on the river to knock me out in 22nd place. Aaaaaaaaaaaaaaargh.
22/1270 or so in a $1000 tournament is still worth a little something, but I’d been running atoricously at 10/20 cap at the same time (Allen Cunningham was playing, which attracted a bunch of awful players, though AC himself actually was playing rather badly but still managed to take a fair bit from me by catching well), so I actually finished down for the night. And now, four hours later, I have to go teach. It’s a great counterpoint to poker, rarely frustrating and almost always rewarding. Also exhausting, though.