Sunday, September 20, 2009

Two Tough Spots Lead to My Demise

I'm out in 1397th. Not sure if I did the right thing or not on the two hands that did me in. I like the way I played them, but there was certainly more than one way to go.

On the first with blinds of 150/300 I raised to 900 with 88 from early middle position. I got one caller and then the button made it 3,600 to go. This looked like a squeeze play to me. I didn't think calling was as option here. It was either reraise or fold. Since I had the button covered by about 14,000 I thought I was time to make a strong move.

I made it 9,000 to go thinking I'd clear out the caller and my other opponent would fold any hand that wasn't AA, KK, QQ or AK. I even thought there was some non zero chance AK or QQ might go in the muck given the size of this tournament. Instead my opponent moved all in for 15K or so. At this point I was getting the right odds to call no matter what she had putting in 6K to win 24K. I was hoping to see AK, but it was QQ and I was all of a sudden in bad shape.

By the time the next hand came along the blinds were 200/400 and a player 3 off the button made it 1,000 to go. I had AQ and reraised to 3,200. He thought for a minute and went all in. I guess I could have folded the hand and left myself with 9,000 chips, but I was getting almost 2 to 1 on my money so I called. Turns out he had 99, I missed and that was it. You have to win some of those races to do well in a tournament and I came up short the first time I got all my chips in the pot.

Of course I'm unhappy with the result, but I'd always rather go out guns blazing making strong moves, trying to win rather than just trying to survive.

I got my entry to this tournament for hitting supernova elite last year and I sold about half my action so even though this tournament was a big deal and I took it very seriously, it doesn't hurt as much as if I'd shelled out $5K from my pocket. Also I won $1,500 in the cash games today so it's not the end of the world.

I'll wrap up the 2009 WCOOP (including a recap on the 8-game tournament) tomorrow and give all the final numbers. Sorry there wasn't more good news this year. :(

1 comment:

Unknown said...

Hi Dave,
How was your stack size on the fisrt hand? And the table was very tight or a loose one?
On the first hand if I was having more than 15 BB I would fold or just call to see a cheap flop. By folding I was just escaping from being dominated. By calling I was hoping to get a set on the flop, but with a raise I would fold.

What was your stack size on the other hand were you were having AQ?
If you were shortstack you did what you have to do, take chances and hop to hit the flop harder.

Cheers.

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