Tuesday, October 12, 2004

Another Near Miss in 3 Table Tourney

I played in 2 Three table tournaments last night online. My thinking going in was that I wanted to attack any weak bets that I saw. What I mean is if there is a $100 pot and someone bets the minimum, say $15. Then I will raise and try to win the pot.

Unfortunately the first game I was in was crazy. Lots of all in's with mediocre hands. I got crippled early and took a chance to double up. It didn't hit and I was out in 20 something place. Not one of my better showings.

The second game was a little more normal. I played the normal tight game. There was not any weak betting going on so I didn't really get the chance to follow through on my plan.

When it got down to two tables I was a little below average in stack size. I continued to be patient and eventually it got down to 2 tables of 6. The problem was we were a bunch of slow players so the blinds were starting to get high. Of the 6 players on our table, 5 of them had about the same size stack as me with the chip leader having about 2 times as much. Basically no one was on the verge of going broke so it would take someone on the other table to break 2 players so we could get to the final table of 10. Then I could afford to be more patient since I could wait a few more hands before the blinds came around.

So we went to random blind stealing just so we could all stay even. I don't think any hand went past the flop for about 15 hands.

Finally we combined to one table and I was about 5th or 6th in chips. I had not really been getting many good hands for the entire tournament and I was a little surprised that I was still alive. Luckily my cards were bad enough that I never got too crippled by trying to chase something. Suddenly my luck changed. I wasn't getting big pairs, it was that my all in bets were hitting. At least 3 times I went into the flop with the worst hand by far and came out a winner. There was 10-8 and I hit a straigt on the river. There was an A-8 against an A-K that I tied on when the board gave us both a Broadway straight. Another time I had 8-8 against 10-10 and hit the third 8 on the flop. Suddenly I was the chip leader.

The last few guys busted out and I was heads up with a pretty good player. We were equal in chips with about 15,000 each. I think the blinds were 400-800. I busted out when I bluffed at a ragged flop after he checked to me. He had raised my blind to 2300 preflop and I called with K-J. I moved all in after the check hoping he would fold his over cards or Ace - something. He called with his QQ. Oh shit.

I am really clueless when it comes to heads up. Anyways it was worth $240 2nd place prize so my Party Poker account is back up over $600 again.

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