Saturday, April 26, 2008

This was just not my lucky day

After not playing for a couple of months and the Main Event less than 3 months away< i decided that I need to start making more of an effort to get down to AC and play in some tournaments.

Played in the 11:15AM $100+$20 NL at the Tropicana this morning. Started off with 10K in chips and got there just after the tourney started since I was coming down from North Jersey on about 4 hours sleep. Long night for my brother's birthday.

Made a couple of loose calls early thinking my ace high was good on a couple of hands with crap boards, only to see my opponent with bottom pair. Next thing I know. I'm down to about 5300 chips a half hour into the tourney.

Didn't get too many cards the next couple of rounds but won 2 consecutive pots at one point to get my stack up to about 9K at the break after Round 3. One hand saw me with pocket Qs and a board with all undercards. I kept hammering the pot after the flop, and turn only to see my opponent (the tabel chip leader) call me down. When I went all in on the river, he reluctantly folded.

My run of bad luck started when I was under the gun with AQ suited and raised 3 1/2 times the BB. Folded around to the BB who reluctantly called. Flop comes out with queen high and the BB goes all in which was twice the pot. I pondered for about 2 seconds before calling and I caught him trying to steal with nothing, A3 offsuit. Feeling confident I'm about to eliminate someone and get up to about 15K in chips, the turn and river bring a 3 and another 3 giving him runner/runner 3s for trips. Considering the circumstances, I was pretty calm. I know it's poker and anything can happen. The debate was which was worse, my bad beat, or another player's luck a few hands earlier when he lost a monster pot when he showed only one card, mucking the other, and then realized he would have outkicked his opponent if he showed both. Oops.

Despite my terrible luck, I was still alive and tried my hardest to get it out of my head and not go on tilt.

I was hovering around 5K in chips when we started round 7. Blinds were up to 400/800 and I knew I needed to make a move and fast. I was in the BB. A really short stacked player in middle position went all in for his last 900 in chips. The player next to him raised to 3 times the BB and the player after him reraised all in, which had us all covered. I take a peek to see A10 offsuit. Great hand short stacked, but after thinking about it I decided to live another day. I figured with 2 all-ins and a 3rd preflop raise, I was dominated to stronger ace and folded. Still not sure if I made the right decision preflop considering I was short stacked. The player who raised ended up calling the all-in. The short stacked player turned over KJ offsuit, the original raiser called the all-in with A8 offsuit, which raised a few eyebrows, and the originall all-in player turned over pocket jacks. My read was wrong. I thought for sure somebody AJ, AQ or AK. My luck got worse when the flop brought two 10s and would have given me trips. Had I called with my A10, I would have had 20K in chips. Instead, I was stuck with around 3K and the small blind coming up and the table leader in the BB to my left.

To my surpise, everyone folded around to me in the small blind and I peek to see pocket queens. I decide to go all-in to steal the BB and antes. The BB decided to call with nothing and flips over J5 offsuit. I told him not to worry because with my luck that day, I'm sure he'd draw out on me. Any guesses what the flop brought??? You got it. Flop comes out with a jack AND a 5 giving him 2 pair and ending my day.

All in all, I didn't think I played badly considering I hadn't played in 2 months and was working on 4 hours sleep. I'm planning on playing much more as July 4th weekend approaches and fine tune my game.

I am officially booked for Vegas and am aiming to play on Friday, July 4th. Hopefully I'm getting all my bad luck out of the way now and the cards will turn my way once I get to Vegas.