I 사설토토half-assed my writing yesterday. To all three of you who read this, I apologize. It just wasn’t a good day for me, nothing going right at all. Frustrating all around, and it probably lead to some bad play towards the end of the day. So I wasn’t in the mood to do anything, and I didn’t give my best effort. Anyway readers, I promise to use my whole ass this time.
My hands are still shaking from what just happened. Well, not really, but they were when I was writing the first few sentences. And now that I’ve eaten some Subway since writing the last sentence, there’s a 100% chance that I won’t cry while writing this – Subway was that delicious. But I’m still pretty pissed off – and definitely still in shock.
So I’m playing in the $320 1:00 tournament on PokerStars. 286 players ponied up the dough, and 27 places paid, with first place getting about $24k. I’d been struggling to survive for pretty much the whole tournament Fortunately, we started out the tournament with 2500 chips (instead of 1500 for most tournaments) and the blind levels were 20 minutes long instead of 15. But regardless, I was struggling. In fact, with 92 players left, I was in 90th place with only about 5 big blinds in my stack. But I was able to double up, triple up, and double up again. All of a sudden, I was right in the thick of things. With 44 players left, I was slightly below the average chip stack size, probably around 28th in chips. And that was when the fateful hand occurred.
With the blinds at 300/600 and a 50 ante, I have A-K offsuit in the cutoff position. It gets folded around to me and I raise it to 1800. Only the small blind calls. The flop is absolutely perfect – Q-J-T rainbow. I’ve flopped the nuts, and the only hands I really need to worry a little bit about are Q-Q, J-J, T-T (they’d have a 34% chance to draw out on me), and to a lesser extent Q-J, Q-T, or J-T (those hands are approximately 17% to win). But if my opponent had queens, jacks, or tens, he almost certainly would have raised pre-flop (he was aggressive and had a big chip stack). So regardless, I’m in great shape. My opponent checks, and I bet 2300 into a 4300 pot. Then he immediately moves all-in – jackpot. Of course I call, and he turns over K-Q, a hand I don’t even have to worry about. At worst, an ace will hit and we’ll split the pot. Looking at the CardPlayer odds calculator, I’m 84.55% to win, 13.03% to tie, and 2.42% to lose. All in all, the perfect situation to be in. Yet somehow, some way, that 2.42% chance came to fruition. Ok class, without looking at the cheat sheet below, how in the world is that possible? Well, the turn was a ten, and the river was a queen, giving him queens full of tens, beating my straight to the ace. Un-freakin-believable. I didn’t say a damn thing, but three other players at the table did – “omg”, “wow”, and “rigged”. Yeah, that’s about right. Had I won that pot, I would have been 5th in chips with 44 to go, with a great chance to get to the final table where I could win anywhere from $1400 to $24,000. Instead, I was knocked out in 44th place, earning $0.00. I guess when you see so many hands, you’re bound to see something like this, but damn. Damn damn damn. (I think I set a record there for use of one word the most times in a single blog. Well, I do say “well” a lot, so maybe not. Oh wait, maybe I just set the record again with a different word. Well, maybe not. Well, probably. Ok, I’ll stop now since my high school English teacher is about to go into convulsions.)
Ok, deep breaths. Time to watch football anyway. Go Lions – they’re still in it, right?
Event #2
Well, thank god for cash games because my tournament performance today was pretty pathetic. Just couldn’t get anything going at all. Most of the hands I won I had to buy/bluff. I think I hit one flop in three and a half hours. Not my day. One more chance tomorrow, and then I’ll probably get out of here. But I did get a free lunch buffet, which was quite delicious.
Fortunately my cash game has continued to be profitable, so despite being 0-for-2 in tourneys, I’m ahead for the trip.
