January Tourney

I played in the live tourney again this past Friday. Buy in was a one-time $100 this time (back to $50 next month). I ended up placing 12th out of 44 players - not bad.

Had trouble with AT in early position again, but this time for a different reason. This time, I called a middle position raiser with my AT (a loose call perhaps, but my cards were very bad for 2 hours, this was the first semi-playable hand I had seen in the first 2 hours).

Flop comes T 9 3, giving me top pair-top kicker.

Figuring there's a good chance I'm good here, I lead out. Opponent calls. Turn comes another 3. Remembering my donk-a-rama in a similar situation in this tourney last time, I check this time. Opponent checks behind.

River comes another 3, giving me 3s over Ts boat.

I really sat and thought about this one. What did my opponent call me with an then check? Did he have AJ-AK and called with overs? Maybe he had something like KQ with a gutshot draw? Was he slowplaying a monster like a set of 9s or Ts? Maybe he had the same hand as I did, AT?

I didn't know. In the end, I figured the three 3s in a row probably didn't help more of the hands in his range, so I threw out a half pot bet. Opponent called and shows a pair of Qs, giving him the higher boat.

I've gone over the hand over and over - I think that perhaps the only mistake I made (other than calling a raise with AT) was the size of the river bet. I learned later that this player is pretty passive postflop and doesn't usually raise an opening bet. I probably could have set a much lower price than half pot and saved myself some chips.

Anyway, losing this hand didn't cripple me, but it did leave me below average. I played some decent short stack poker for a few more hours but luck finally caught up with me. My good friend took second in the tourney and took home a cool 12 hundy for his efforts....