Luck leads to tournament success
Posted by Chuck on February 26th, 2010Today’s roundup tournament was interesting, and not just because I finished in the money, with 5 roundup discs. No, it’s interesting because of three hands in which I got very, very lucky. I also made one bad decisions that cost me a better finish.
I began the tournament completely card dead. The only hand I really played was a J-9 offsuit in the big blind with 4 other players, and when I hit middle pair, on a K-9-x board and no one bet on the flop, I bet out on the turn when blank fell. I was surprised to get 2 callers, and I shut it down when an ace hit the river.
Still, at the break, I had T$700 of my T$1000 starting stack. Yet the early orbits after the break were going no better, and my chips continued to dwindle. I was not the only short stack at the table wither, as a couple of players had chipped up pretty well. Finally, I decided to make a stand. I raised all-in from middle position after it had been checked to me with J-10 suited. To my dismay, it was reraised, and that reraise got two callers(!), putting three of us all-in. My feeling got worse when the reraiser had 10-10 and one of the callers had A-J offsuit. I think the last player had a small pair. Three of the cards that could help me were in other players’ hands. This just made a bad situation worse.
Miracle flop! It included the Q and the 9 of diamonds, giving me a straight flush draw. According to my odds calculator (looked at afterward), I’m actually a favorite: 56% to win the hand. I caught another diamond on the river and quadrupled up to get a decent stack.
Table broke, moved to another table. Mostly uneventful until we got to the 160/300, 300/600 round. A couple of early position players just limped, and the small blind raised all-in for T$220 more. I looked down to see an ugly Q-5 offsuit, but groaned when I made the call.
And what a flop. Q-J-5. I had flopped two pair, quite a strong hand.
Now tournament strategy dictates that when multiple people are in a hand, you check the hand down to increase the chances that one of those hands will win, thus busting out the all-in and moving everyone left closer to the money. But when you flop a really strong hand, you don’t need to do that.
So I bet out, figuring that the other two players would understand tournament strategy and get out of the way.
I was wrong. The player next to me raised. And then the other player in cold-called. Wow!
I thought for a bit, slightly worried about a QJ holding, but then decided to reraise. Both just called. I eventually got my whole stack in on the turn when a blank fell, and both called that too.
The reraiser had KQ for just top pair, while the cold-caller had AK. I more than tripled up and got myself a huge stack. But I wasn’t done.
We were down to two shorthanded tables when I found pocket 10s and raised. I got two callers. I hit a set on the flop, which had one overcard, and one of the callers bet out. I raised, and both called. The turn was a blank. It was checked to me, I bet, and the both called. The river was the case 10, giving me my third four-of-a-kind in tournament play this week. Again, they checked. Again, I bet, and again, they both called.
By then, it was an easy coast to the final table, where I finished third in chips and with 5 roundup buttons for a nice $200 cash.
Oh, the mistake.
Shortly after I made the quads. an aggressive player raised in early position, and a somewhat passive player cold-called. I looked down to see AK offsuit. Normally, I’d probably 3-bet, but I was thinking at the time of just coasting to the money. I thought about it for a bit and folded. And ace hit the flop, and K hit the turn, and the A-J offsuit of the cold-caller beat the pocket 7s of the original raiser. It was a bad decision on my part, and the results, while irrelevant to the decision, would have left me with the cold-caller’s roundup buttons too, which would have meant a bigger cash at the end.