Just When I Thought It Couldn't Get Any Worse

Tournament poker can be so frustrating that, as much as I love playing poker, I am starting to question why I put myself through it...

10 December 2007 by David Gross

Tournament poker can be so frustrating that, as much as I love playing poker, I am starting to question why I put myself through it.

I wrote a few weeks ago about the bad run I’ve been enduring over the last four months and I ended in optimistic tones about various areas I could improve to get back to winning ways. But the longer this run goes on, the harder it is to see the light at the end of the tunnel.

Taking my own advice from my last blog, I took a shot at a couple of big live tourneys – the £1K GUKPT event in Blackpool and the £3K GUKPT final in London. Apart from the odd high level mistake, I felt good about how I played in both of them – that didn’t help my bankroll though which took another large dent when I failed to cash in either.

Back to online MTTs, previously such a happy hunting ground and the beats have just carried on coming. Last weekend, I played an early event in the ECOOP on Titan Poker. $300 buy-in, 1200 runners and a $75K first prize. Lovely jubbly – I know all it will take is for me to win one of these types of event for the poker world to seem a sunny place again. Fast forward to the last 80 players - average stack 45,000, I have 70,000 and the blinds are 1K-2K. I open UTG to 5K with . All pass round to the BB who is very active and the only player who has me covered. He makes a small raise. With a good read on him and position I call and take a K high flop. He led out for an amount that made me confident I was ahead – I shoved and after a long dwell up he called with . River – good game me – Viva one outers...

Last night I decided to take a stab at the Main Event in the same ECOOP series on Titan Poker. $1000 buy in – 1000 runners - $220K first prize, $110K second. I gave it my all. No multi-tabling, no TV in the background, no MSN chatting with the girlfriend, ipod on, lots of player observation and note taking - pure focus. We started with 5K. I quickly worked my way up to 9K. About 90 minutes in, with in the hole, I trapped a guy holding to commit all his chips on the turn on a high board. River … :-(. Back down to 5K instead of 17K, I let out a few choice expletives but knuckled back down and played some really good poker. Without ever being all-in, over the next few hours I worked my way up to 40K and a decent stack. Then I managed to get in cheap with 22, flop a set and benefit from the table bully who shipped me a double up with his pocket . Suddenly I was in a great position and I managed to make the best of various tricky situations to maintain my position as one of the chip leaders.

With 80 people left and blinds at 2000-4000, I had twice the average stack with over 120,000. A very loose aggressive player with 100K behind opened for 12K UTG and all passed to me with on the button. Even for a loose player, his standard open raise UTG indicated a strong hand – most likely tens through to kings. But I decided to smooth call for two reasons. Firstly, from previous plays I think he had me pegged for a rock so I was happy to let him bleed off all his chips to me after the flop from out of position. Secondly both blinds had 45K and had shown willingness to go for squeeze plays in previous rounds. As it happens the blinds both got out the way. As the flop was coming down, I said “no Queen, no Jack”. Against my wishes off peeled rainbow. He insta-checked. Uh-oh – alarm bells go off in my head. Half trapping, half-concerned I was up against a set of Queens I checked behind (yes you did read that right – I checked in position with aces). Turn comes a . He insta-checks again. My initial inclination was to check again (for the same reasons as the flop) but my trigger finger got the better of me and I bet out. He made a very quick very big reraise. Now – without stopping long enough to consider my options I stuck it all-in. Insta-call – .

I worked my short stack back up and had a few shots to get back into real contention but I never really recovered my composure. After another bad beat as I was climbing back up the ranks, less than an hour later I was out in 55th. I tried to comfort myself that it just wasn’t meant to be – I mean I had aces cracked twice at key points, a few other small outdraws and I literally didn’t win one race or have one suck-out all tournament. I know that it’s pretty hard to win a tourney in those circumstances. But my mind kept going back to the aces.

I guess most players reraise pre-flop and it all goes in at that stage with the same result. I also think that most players having trapped in position end up doing their chips on the flop or the turn. But I don’t think of myself as “most players” and I know I am capable of checking the turn and keeping it cheap on the river. I have done it countless times in the past when I have a very big hand but my instincts tell me I’m beat. Click here for a recent good example (how many other players get away from this?) Of course this frustration at my own play was combined with the obvious frustration that a Queen flopped in the first place. I mean why couldn’t it just come three baby cards or any other flop? This guy was never gonna get away from his Queens – ship me his stack and the chip lead and I’m pretty much nailed on for a big pay day.

With all these thoughts circling my mind, I found sleep, my normal smile and my positive attitude very hard to come by.

I hope to be back with better news sometime soon.

Either way, merry Xmas, happy Chunukah and all the best for the new Year

Thekid08

10/12/07