Monday, August 25, 2008

sometimes they just have it

Took 2nd in a tourney last night - I played well. The guy who took first place had an amazing winrate over 2000+ hands - it looked unreal to me. I had further suspicions when he raised a late position hand with 94o and then hit the old 994 flop. (his opponent didn't like that much either - he stayed around to bark about it for about 5 hands after he was knocked out).

There was another bubble that I thought I would fall victim to once again, but the 2nd place chip guy decided to tangle with Mr. luckycards and put me and the other shortstack into the money. I was able to double up and hold on for second place. I played exceptionally well heads up - even took the lead for awhile, but a crap run of cards and a steady, good, aggressive opponent overtook me.

However, it was still early so I hopped on another one.

Twice in this second tourney, I got AA in one of the blinds. In both cases, a late position, good player raised it up and I reraised small. Twice the villain called. The flop came and in both cases I lead out around with a 2/3 pot donkbet and the villain folded. I probably could have gotten more value by checking or leading smaller, but I hate getting my Aces cracked when I give opponents free shots at draws, so I was happy to take them both down.

I was thinking about what my opponent thought of me after doing this the second time. Here he was, trying to steal in late position (or maybe he had a legitimate raising hand that didn't catch a flop), and some knucklehead in the blind was defending his blind hard and pushing him off the hand twice, without position. I know that would piss
me off.

The reason I know is because the same thing was happening to me on the other side of the table, in the same tournament! I watched a player call an under the gun raise with 88, hit his set, and then break the under the gun player who caught an ace. Then I watched the same player limp in with KK, then break the best player at the table who had AT and caught top pair T. I also saw him call a raise with KJ (the number one "trouble hand") and beat a player who had KQ with a fortunate flop. All three of these plays could be characterized as a mistake, but all three worked out for him.

Later in the game, I raised it up from late position with K7 (a pure steal), and he called me in position. The flop came a bunch of unconnected crap, he checked, so I fired out my c-bet. He called. The turn came and he checked again. I decided I needed to give this hand up unless I wanted to donk my whole stack off to another slowplay, so I checked as well. He fired a bet into the river (which didn't hit me) and I had to fold.

Very next hand, I get JJ. Ok, then - I raise it up, same son of a $#@!@% calls me in position again. Dammit! Flop comes unconnected again, but this time with an ace. I check, he bets, I checkraise all-in, and he calls with AJ. A quick 7th place exit for me. Whoops. Justice would have given me AK instead of JJ on that hand.

A common joke says that there are three ways to play JJ, and all three of them are wrong. Checkraising all-in on an ace-high board might be the fourth way.

I don't think this guy was a very good player, but sometimes they just get the cards. Not once, but again and again. Had I broken the player on my right who kept trying to steal against my AA, he could have said the same thing about me...

No comments: