Yesterday was the limit tournament at the club. The entries were up a bit from the week before: 59 (from 50).
We had a short table to start, and joining us quickly was what turned out to be some dead money, a calling station who played just about every hand. I caught some cards early and was able to build up a bit of a stack, one that took a bit of a hit by that very caling station.
I had A3 in the big blind. There were actually 3 or 4 callers to see AJ2 on the flop. I bet out and got everyone but the calling station to fold. The turn brought nothing and the river paired the 2. I continued betting thinking that the calling station likely paired a jack. It turned out she actually had a good hand, AQ, and took the pot on her kicker.
I don’t think that was a bad decision, and I had more than doubled my stack at the break and decided to just do the add-on and not the rebuy. I speny my whole break mulling over this decision though. I would have been top stack if I did both, but I was still near the top with just one (each was $800 in chips), so I decided that a single $60 additional investment would do.
And I made it to the final table. The bad news, when I did, I was short stacked. With a bit of a lull in cards, I was unable to make a play, and when I was in the right position to try and steal, someon before me would make a move. I was down to three $1000 chips with the level going to $2000/$4000.
With 2 more hands before I got the big blind, I decided to go all-in with KJ offsuit. Only the blinds called, and the big blind took the pot with a small one-gap connector that made a straight on the river. As it turns out, not taking the rebuy was a good decision because 10th-place money exactly paid back my buy-in.
After my Friday night, I decided to step down to a $3/$6 table. I joined a new table but only the #1 seat was open. Then I encountered an interesting challenge: the player in the #10 seat, immediately to my right, raised nearly every hand pre-flop. The few hands he didn’t raise, he called.
As it turns out, I had little playable over the course of his actions. The few hands I did stab at went nowhere, and I understood that I wanted to first get a good hand, then let him raise it for me. Unfortunately, not good hands were forthcoming.
But as I figured would happen, his stack, while occasionally growing from muying out pots, eventually shrank to nothing. He got up and said he’d be back, but also as expected, failed to return. I took that #10 seat.
But for the first hour and 45 minutes at that table, I continued to get unplayable cards. I just kept taoosing my cards in th muck, practicing my patience. And my patience was rewarded.
Interestingly, whenI finally got a good hand and raised pre-flop, I still got several callers. I hit on the flop and led to to the end, winning a nice pot, and I commented to the dealer at the time that I thought it was interesting that no one noticed that it was my first rasie in nealry 2 hours, that because no one was paying attention, I got several callers, and that led to a bigger pot.
I ended up playing for a bit more than 3 hours, until I started to get tired (almost 8 hours of play total for the day), and walked away chalking up a $40 net win.