A Good Night (oh so close to a Great Night)

Objectively, the night went well for me. I exactly bubbled the final table in the 15k on Full Tilt which started at 8 and managed to take down the Mookie which I had played at simmultaneously from 10.

It was not quite as enjoyable as it sounds--funny how the way you feel about how things turn out jumps around with how high your expectations go.

I started playing the 15k guaranteed with Weak Player and the field seemed particularly awful--we lost 2/3 of the players by the first break.


I was hanging around about average for quite awhile without really get chipped up as we approached the cash bubble (sadly losing my wingman along the way). As I got near cash bubble, I would have been at least somewhat happy just have slipped in as my M had dropped to about 6.

I managed to go on a heater which started just before the bubble and lasted until I actually found myself 8th of 80 or so. I then chipped down, sliding down to the teens, until I had one huge hand where a jackass big stack decided to give me a lot of chips.

I hung out for awhile near the top of the leaderboard, while at the same time my situation in the Mookie looked bleak. At one point, I got down to 580 chips—leaving me to a desperation play.

I was feeling pretty good in the 15K, was playing very TAGish, much more so than in the Mook, where LAGSox came out.

I then got in a situation that I thought I might be able to use my stack to bully—something I hadn’t done a lot of so I felt it would work. I had presto, against a late position opener with a medium stack and figured he’d probably fold overs, and even some pairs from 66-TT. Problem was, he Aks, which is not the kind of hand most people will fold getting 3:1. When he called, I was happy to see I had a coinflip, but although I had been lucky with these in several places throughout the night, I was not here .

I dropped down to the middle of the pack, even plummeting to an M of less than 3, putting me in a position where I had to call an all-in from and even shorter player (if you can believe it) with 66. The results were not pretty as my M dropped to below two—Harrington’s “Dead Zone”.

I then when on dual heaters in both the Mookie and the 15K, doubling up several times in each, finding myself #6 of 12 in the 15K and in 2nd place, behind Waffles, in the Mook.

I played more aggressively in the Mook, in part because I was very willing to bust out to maximize my EV in the 15K. Given how things turned out, I’ll need to think about this more to see whether perhaps I needed to play more aggressively in the “real” tourney once we got down to the final two tables.

In the 15K, we got down to 10 players and I got moved to the other table for balancing. Unfortunately, I was the relative short stack on the new table, though as Bobby Bracelet pointed out, had no reason to hurry with an M of around 10-15. We lasted with 10 players all through a break and many, many hands, at least 20 minutes. I was chipping down a bit but had grabbed a couple of pots where I could to more or less tread water.

Then a hand came up where I had 99 in early position, a strong hand 5 with five players. I raised it up pot as I had twice before in the past two orbits, committing 1/3 of my stack. It folded around to the big blind, who was also the big stack and quite aggressive. He paused for a moment and min raised me.

Either he had monster and was trying to string me along, or he figured he could push me off my hand. I had to make a choice and I felt pretty strong it was the latter. I still considered folding—I would still have an M of around 4 if I folded, with a reasonable shot of out waiting someone else to the final table. But I wanted to get there with chips—true cliché: if you want to live you must be willing to die.

I pushed. He thought for a few more moments before deciding he was pot committed. My read was dead on, but my luck held out no more. It hurt, but at least it was over quickly, with an ace on the flop.

My consolation hand actually happened in the Mookie before this:

DQB!!!

Aside from setting me up to take the whole thing down, I got revenge on Waffles for that awful beat he put on me with 24o cracking my cowboys way back when (not that I remember these things).

So all in all, it was a good night.

Thanks to Weak, Donkey Puncher and Bobby for sweating me at the 15K.