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The plan was to end my two month tournament sabbatical with the three big blogger tournaments last night. The Big Game, The Skill Game, and ThePokerGrinder. Alas due to familial obligations I only arrived back home in time for the last one on the list.
Much has been said, and many bloggers have bitched, about the quality of play in blogger tournaments. As of last night I have come to the following conclusions about poker bloggers. Just because you write about poker, doesn’t mean you know how to play poker. At least not play poker well.
This is in reality no different than playing in any other tournament online. You have your good players, and you have your bad players. The problem lies in the expectation that poker bloggers should be, as a whole, skewed more toward the good player side.
The poker blogging community has within it, it’s own microcosm of society. You have your elders followed by the middle agers and finally the children. Everyone must remember that these “children” play in the tournaments as well. Hopefully one day they will grow and learn but some, well some are just born with an extra chromosome. There is nothing you can do for them developmentally but be supportive of their endeavors.
These are the ones you often hear about, but not always. Everyone is capable of making that fatal mistake. Just try not to let it be you.
Before last night I hadn’t played a MTT since August. Beyond that I hadn’t seen action in a blogger tournament since June. (I did play the Pokerstars coop event for bloggers but I’m not counting that.) I expected a very rusty and poor performance but I can’t actually remember when I had played better.
Everything was clicking for me yesterday. I decided to play one token satellite to gain my entrance for The Big Game. I won the token.
When the tournament started everything progressed well and I managed to be among the chip leaders throughout most of the event. By the time the final table started I was the chip leader and I continued to build my stack from there. Within a few orbits I had a 2:1 chip lead over my closest competitor. I truly felt this was my tournament to lose.
As play continued I took a back seat to the action and tightened up. I saw no need in giving anything away and I watched on as TripJax began to make a big move. As we reached the final four he and I would swap the lead several times.
This is where things went horribly wrong. Four handed and in the SBTripJax raises to 4,200. Button folds and I decided to take a flop with A6d, the BB folds. Here it gets interesting as the flop brings 345 rainbow. I have the open end straight draw and an Ace for a possible 11 outs. I figure this is a good spot to take the pot down since if I get called I have plenty of outs, and if he is stealing the blinds with say KQ or so he will have to let it go. I make a pot sized bet of 10,400 and Trip goes into the tank for a few moments. When he decides what to do he fires back at me with a bet of 23,000.
I know I’m looking at an overpair at this point. The thing is I was really only dead if he had 22, 77, or AA. I believed I was left with only 2 choices, fold or push. Folding left me with 36,000 chips and second place, but just barely. It also would have made TripJax a very big stack and he was the one player I didn’t want to have chips. His bet was also an odd amount. If felt a bit like a “go away I don’t want to invest anymore money” bet. I believed that a push could be enough to make him fold if he felt vulnerable. After all, with that flop I could have a lot of big hands if I’m willing to push.
So push I did. He goes into the tank and then calls showing me one of the three hands I really didn’t want him to have. The 77. I can’t hit one of my remaining 9 outs and I’m sent packing in fourth place. To say I was pissed would be an understatement. I didn’t stick around to see who won, although if TripJax didn’t win something went horribly wrong.
I had already spent the first place money in my head. I need a new laptop and I was going to take that money and get one. I’m calmed down now but I have to admit that loss bugged me for hours.
The one positive out of all this is my passion for the multi’s in rekindled.
