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Did I do us proud?
I played in a tournament in Brownsburg, Indiana. My uncle is a member of the American Legion and their post in Brownsburg had a tourney. 80 players, $40 buy in, freeze out format. I finished 3rd. $400 win, $360 dollar profit.
It was the usual interesting mix of players. I overhead one guy comment that this was his first live poker. Get me a table full of those. My first table ended up being pretty slow, steady, tight, passive. There was one aggressive player sitting to my left and that limited my ability to be an aggressor. He would comment to me about me being a bully, and I thought he was one to talk. The table seemed to feel that the bets I made were a bit on the high side. Whatever.
The guy to my left started a routine that if I tried to limp in from the small blind after everyone else folded he would raise. I like patterns, I can use those to my advantage. In the end, I didn't get an opportunity to use the blinds play to hurt him. I found another way to put the hurt on him.
He hurt me in the first hour on a play that others at the table questioned me on. Uhmm, I finished 3rd, none of them were at the final table. Shut up.
The blinds were 75/150, I was UTG and raised to $500 with A-10s. He re-raised me to $1000. Since he had been aggressive I called and wanted to see how things panned out after the flop. The flop was 10-x-x, I'm pretty sure rainbow. There's $2225 in the pot. I have $3000 left in front of me. I know I can't check because he will bet. So I decide to send out a feeler bet ($1500) and see how he responds. I think he has respect for me and despite his love of aggression he may hesitate if he sees me showing no fear (he has already seen me push with top pair). He raises me all in. The read on most players after these actions is he has AA, KK, QQ, maybe JJ and a very remote chance of AK. But this guy is a different story. I took a lot of time, and others asked for me to be put on the clock. I eventually folded.
When I folded a lady asked “How can you bet ˝ your stack and then fold after he puts you all in?” I said “It was a feeler bet, and I got a feel.” : ) Well, apparently, most of the people at the table thought he was full of it and I laid down the best hand. As I have shared on previous posts, there are points that I'll stop the story to refrain from revealing too much information about my play. This is one of those points. There was a particular thing that occurred that made me think he had a hand. Don't ever forget a very important rule; even bluffers get cards.
Her fop aux was that the size of my stack didn't determine the size of my bet, the size of the pot did. And I decided that $1500 left was enough to live another day. (It was $3000 starting, and I have come back from less than ˝ the starting chip count before.)
The comeback begins.
Dan Harrington, and others, teach that luck in poker goes beyond the cards. Here is a possible example. I'm in the small blind and there were definitely 2 limpers, maybe 3. I turned to Mr. Aggression and said “They ruined my plan. I was going to go all in against you without even looking at my cards. Now I have to look.” After I looked at my cards, I went “I like that idea anyway.” I went all in.
I got 3 callers, including my nemesis. That's good and bad. I can maybe quadruple up. But I also have had my odds of winning go down. The callers did the obligatory check down and I kept an eye on them to see if anyone was showing any excitement as the cards hit the table. They were actually showing the opposite. My spirits were lifting.
My AA held up. No one was happy. I am not sure if my little verbal BS before the hand caused people to misread my play, underestimate the strength of my hand, and make a foolish call. Because some decent cards came out but nobody seemed to hit anything. Bottom line, I was back in the game.
This is an example that me getting AA was only half the battle. The rest of my luck was that no one else got lucky. I had the best hand to start, but when I get 3 callers my odds go from being at least a 4 to 1 favorite when I'm heads up to somewhere between only 2-1 to 3-1. Maybe worse. Since no one showed their cards I don't know the exact odds I had.
Critical hand number 2. The aggressor tries to mess with me again. It's virtually identical to the hand he hurt me on. This hand has a different ending though. My chip stack was now bigger than his. He tried his little “all in” play after a pretty nasty flop. I called with AcKc. He had K-Jo. His tournament was over.
I asked the judgmental lady if she had any faith in my ability to read players now. She didn't answer.
Then something happened that I hadn't noticed was going to happen. I had looked at the blind structure before things started and I approved of what I saw. 20 minute levels that went up incrementally. I, unfortunately, didn't scan far enough down. After 3 hours, they started to go up exponentially. Things started to get rough. It was a struggle to stay ahead of the blinds coming up all our collective butts.
My survival was assisted by another fortuitous timing of events. I was one of 4 people all in when we were down to 2 tables. My A-Ks was the best hand and I caught a K on the turn to stay on top. I single handedly got us down to the final table.
Again, I didn't need luck. I had the best hand. What I needed was for no one else to get lucky.
The final table was the too-typical survivor fest. There were only 2 guys with chip stacks adequate for the blinds. Then I was taken by surprise when they decided to go head to head all in. Now one guy has everyone 4 to 1 in chips, at least, and he's the one getting the cards to knock out people when they make their desperate all in moves. It was pretty disgusting.
My final hand: We're down to 4 players. I'm BB. UTG folds. Dealer goes all in with his chip count a little less than the BB. SB calls, I check. I'm expecting to check things down but the SB (the big stack) puts me all in after the turn. I was sitting on 10-7o. The flop was 10-8-8 and the turn was < 7. So I wasn't sure what he was up to, but since things were the way they were I decided I wasn't going to fold top pair. He had 10-8. Drat! I'm not sure why he didn't wait till the river. Maybe he thought there was a better chance that I'd call now rather than after the river. Since my stack was bigger than the dealer's when the hand started, he gets fourth and I get third place.
I picked up my envelope of cash and had a beer.
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