Sunday, March 20, 2005
I am my own worst enemy...
Damn you, Rafe Furst! Well, actually, I shouldn't blame anyone but myself. I played one hour and forty four minutes of great poker and three minutes of utterly retarded poker. In no limit poker though, those three minutes are all it takes to undo the previous hour and three quarters.
After the tourney win the night before, I figured what the hell and splurged on the $109 No-Limit 50K guarantee on FTP. Top 54 places got paid and I felt fairly confident I could pull that off. I played some very solid poker to start with, particularly paying attention to playing only premium starting hands. Finally caught break when I got dueces in my hand and flopped the bottom set. Board ended up pairing as well and my boat took down an Ace high flush and another set. Suddenly I had T6350 and had jumped up to 30th place out of the original 355 entrants, which were now down to around 215 people. At that point I figured I could just keep playing good smart poker and probably make it to the money pretty easy.
After another half hour or so we're down to 130 players left, and I've got T3900 when I get unlucky on an ace high flop over my pair of Jacks on some heavy pre-flop betting. Then apparently I caught the stupid virus. I got Q8 offsuit in the big blind, with 100/200 blind levels, two hands after the professional player Rafe Furst got moved onto the table two seats in front of me. Now there was even more at stake because if you knock a pro out of tournament on FTP they give you back your buy-in.
So the Q8 gets one limper and one raiser up to 400, SB folds and I complete and so does the limper. The flop came 984. I thought for a second and figured that both these guys were on over cards, so I led out with a pot-sized bet of $1335. Limper folds immediately and then Raiser comes back over the top for another $1200. This is where my brain went into malfunction. I knew I was beat. I swear that I really knew it. But for some reason I was able to convince myself that he could still possibly be on an Ace-King and trying to buy me out or hope for the best if I called. I've seen that happen plenty of times on FTP. And with $5300 in the pot already, my pot had odds of 5 to 1. I knew I would probably have to hit either the Queen or eight to pull out the win which left me with exactly five outs in the deck. Five cards out of twenty nine remaining in the deck, meaning my odds lay 6 to 1. Now that automatically means fold. The amount you have to pay to see the cards is worse than your odds of catching the cards, fold John fold! Call.
He turned over Jacks and nothing came on the turn or river and I'm down to T2300. Two hands later I get dealt pocket tens. Blinds are up to $150/300, and Rafe Furst raises in front of me to $1000 which was about 25% of his stack. I thought it was kind of a big lead out but figured I was down pretty low on chips and he could easily have a big Ace so we'd be racing on a coin flip. I knew I'd be all-in after the flop most likely, so instead of calling with half my stack now I moved back over the top all-in. Everyone folds back around to Rafe and he calls. Naturally, he turns over Jacks over my tens. No help comes and I'm done. Three minutes of bad poker and I'm out of a tournament I probably could have gone really deep in.
Thought about it for a while after I got knocked out and pieced things together this way. If I had been smart and not called the re-raise on my first bad hand, I still would have had about T3400. Then, went I went up against Rafe with my 10's, I could have called instead of going all-in, and the flop had come King high with three hearts. I could have moved all-in there and most likely taken the pot down. But I had taken that play away from myself for being an idiot two hands before. C'est le vie.
So, after a week of heavy poker playing, here's my analysis. I'm getting much better. Finally I took down my first online poker tournaments and barely missed on a couple more final tables. For some reason I'm unable to make myself play an entire tournament online the way I play a tournament live. I play hands that I never play offline and I can't decide why I do that. But I'm starting to break the habit so that bodes well for the future. Hopefully I can keep playing a lot, and keep playing better, during this next week and get my game tuned up for the return to Richmond. There are three big live tournaments that week I'm going to play in, and I wouldn't mind keeping my live tournament streak of top three finishes going, that'd be worth a few grand to me if I can.
After the tourney win the night before, I figured what the hell and splurged on the $109 No-Limit 50K guarantee on FTP. Top 54 places got paid and I felt fairly confident I could pull that off. I played some very solid poker to start with, particularly paying attention to playing only premium starting hands. Finally caught break when I got dueces in my hand and flopped the bottom set. Board ended up pairing as well and my boat took down an Ace high flush and another set. Suddenly I had T6350 and had jumped up to 30th place out of the original 355 entrants, which were now down to around 215 people. At that point I figured I could just keep playing good smart poker and probably make it to the money pretty easy.
After another half hour or so we're down to 130 players left, and I've got T3900 when I get unlucky on an ace high flop over my pair of Jacks on some heavy pre-flop betting. Then apparently I caught the stupid virus. I got Q8 offsuit in the big blind, with 100/200 blind levels, two hands after the professional player Rafe Furst got moved onto the table two seats in front of me. Now there was even more at stake because if you knock a pro out of tournament on FTP they give you back your buy-in.
So the Q8 gets one limper and one raiser up to 400, SB folds and I complete and so does the limper. The flop came 984. I thought for a second and figured that both these guys were on over cards, so I led out with a pot-sized bet of $1335. Limper folds immediately and then Raiser comes back over the top for another $1200. This is where my brain went into malfunction. I knew I was beat. I swear that I really knew it. But for some reason I was able to convince myself that he could still possibly be on an Ace-King and trying to buy me out or hope for the best if I called. I've seen that happen plenty of times on FTP. And with $5300 in the pot already, my pot had odds of 5 to 1. I knew I would probably have to hit either the Queen or eight to pull out the win which left me with exactly five outs in the deck. Five cards out of twenty nine remaining in the deck, meaning my odds lay 6 to 1. Now that automatically means fold. The amount you have to pay to see the cards is worse than your odds of catching the cards, fold John fold! Call.
He turned over Jacks and nothing came on the turn or river and I'm down to T2300. Two hands later I get dealt pocket tens. Blinds are up to $150/300, and Rafe Furst raises in front of me to $1000 which was about 25% of his stack. I thought it was kind of a big lead out but figured I was down pretty low on chips and he could easily have a big Ace so we'd be racing on a coin flip. I knew I'd be all-in after the flop most likely, so instead of calling with half my stack now I moved back over the top all-in. Everyone folds back around to Rafe and he calls. Naturally, he turns over Jacks over my tens. No help comes and I'm done. Three minutes of bad poker and I'm out of a tournament I probably could have gone really deep in.
Thought about it for a while after I got knocked out and pieced things together this way. If I had been smart and not called the re-raise on my first bad hand, I still would have had about T3400. Then, went I went up against Rafe with my 10's, I could have called instead of going all-in, and the flop had come King high with three hearts. I could have moved all-in there and most likely taken the pot down. But I had taken that play away from myself for being an idiot two hands before. C'est le vie.
So, after a week of heavy poker playing, here's my analysis. I'm getting much better. Finally I took down my first online poker tournaments and barely missed on a couple more final tables. For some reason I'm unable to make myself play an entire tournament online the way I play a tournament live. I play hands that I never play offline and I can't decide why I do that. But I'm starting to break the habit so that bodes well for the future. Hopefully I can keep playing a lot, and keep playing better, during this next week and get my game tuned up for the return to Richmond. There are three big live tournaments that week I'm going to play in, and I wouldn't mind keeping my live tournament streak of top three finishes going, that'd be worth a few grand to me if I can.
