Maybe a good night’s sleep is the key.
Sunday was the every-other-week limit tournament at the Oaks. I was in bed by 2am and woke up at 11 well rested. The drive to the card club was uneventful and i had time to get a good lunch before the tournament began.
When I got to my table and looked around, my heart sank. Several of the people were people I’d played against before and I knew them to be tough competitors. As it turned out, there was just one fish at the table, and he was on my immediate left.
The start was slow going and my stack sank slowly. I still had a little left at the break, though, but that also meant both the rebuy and add-on were necessary to keep going. Right out of the break things picked up. I snagged pocket kings and had it raised pre-flop to me. I re-raised and got all callers. The flop was a harmless little rainbow, as was the turn and river and the kings held up, giving me a nice pot and a good-size stack.
But the tournament once again had just 60 entrants, meaning only the final table would cash, and even the bottom two places wouldn’t cover the buy in and rebuy and add-on. With fewer than 20 players left, I picked up a nice hand and got two all-in callers. I improved to knock out both and send me eventuall to the final table.
Once again, the table was full of mostly tough players. Everyone was playing cautiously, though, and it enabled me to steal the blinds a couple of times with just medium aces. I was able to build the big stack at one point, but I lost a chunk when I tried pushing just a bit too hard on one hand and got raised, and I had to fold. The very next hand I picked up a good hand to recoup some of the stack.
In one hand with 7 or 8 players left I was in one of the blinds, I think, and one player raised and another, who I know to be a solid player, re-raised. I went in to the tank for a bit when I looked at my cards and found pocket jacks. I thought seriously that to re-raise, he probably would have had a higher pair and I mucked myhand. (I found out later he had AK.)
My final hand was a speculative one. With 5 players left, it was obvious–one person even mentioned it out loud–that any bet would simply take the blinds. We got to playing 5000/10,000 with 3000/5000 blinds. I had about 25,000 chips, not the short stack, but the bigger stacks weren’t that much bigger. I got 65c in the cutoff seat (one off the button) and raised when the under-the-gun player folded. But the button called and the blinds folded. The flop came A-10-8 rainbow. I thought for a moment and checked. The button responded by checking too. A 7 came on the turn. I thought again and bet 10,000 of my last 15,000, thinking that I might be able to steal the pot now with the higher bet, but feeling comfortable with a straight draw now too. But I was raised, and ended up having no choice but to call.
There were more than 50,000 chips in the pot at the time. The blinds, plus my pre-flop raise of 5000 and the call, plus the turn bet of 10,000 and then the raise. I had 5000 chips left, which meant better than 10-1 pot odds. I had 8 outs to my straight, which would very likely have given me best hand, or about 8.5-1 odds. Plus, I would be blinded off in another 2 hands unless I got very lucky.
Unfortunately, (a) the button had A-10 offsuit for two pair, and (b) I didn’t get my river draw. Still 5th place is a nice place to finish, its only drawback that with the low number of entrants, the payday isn’t as much as it could be (and the high percentage payouts are concentrated in the top 3 anyway). But I also get a few more Oaks Player of the Year points, although it’s unlikely I’ll make it to the top 5.
I took a break afterwards to check out the nearby Good Guys and their store closing sale and found a Motorola Razr phone for just $200. I snapped it up and went back to the club and signed up for a $6/$12 game.
Whie I was waiting, I observed the two tables. One seemed to be a bit loose, while at the other, I notice some players against whom I had played before, and who play a steady, solid game. Unfortunately, I was called to the first table.
On my wayover, I asked for a table change. The brush commented that he didn’t understand why peole always ask for that and I explained that I had been watching. And I was right: The game was loose, with a bunch of gamblers. I decided to simply bide my time and wait for my change.
I got the call just as I picked up AQ offsuit in the big blind with several callers. I just limped and the flop came queen high rainbow. I bet out and got 3 or 4 callers still. The turn and river also came up blanks. I bet each time, the last with just one other player in who said the usual calling station’s line of “I just gotta see it” and was rewarded this time when my queens held up.
After a bit more of an hour at the other table, I got on a sudden roll. I picked up 3 strong hands in a row, improved them all, and took all the pots, including one rather large one. In just two hours I more than doubled my buy in, and I decided that I pick up and go home at a decent hour, it being already almost 10pm.
All in all, it was an very nice day at the poker tables. I made few bad decisions and got aggressive in (mostly) the right places. The result was, in a manner of speaking, a double win and a renewed spirit to return.