play bad - break even. (also called luck).

Took a shot at a $30 tonight - rated double fishy on sharkscope. Played pretty well until I was nearing the bubble. I was in trouble because the big stack was two to my left - tough sledding shoving into him. I had seen him make a raise and fold to a shove before, so when he raised on my BB, I shoved back into him with KTo, hoping for a fold or at least 2 live cards. He called with A9. I was behind but caught a King on the board to get back into contention.

All post-game analysis says this was a horrible play. His stats were 17/17/9 - meaning he was playing only 17% of the hands, and raising with all of them. Pokerstove says KTo is about 38% against the top 17% of hands.

SNGWiz says this is an extremely borderline play as well. If I put this player as raising with 20% of his hands and calling with 15%, then this is a clear fold - negative 1.33% difference in equity. If I change the calling percentage from 15% down to 10% though, then it becomes a push. (10% doesn't cover A9o, though, so this range is too tight).

How can you estimate a player's calling range down to 5%?

I also made a possibly questionable fold later with AKo - I open-raised to 3.5x and a beginning player shoved over me. I was a bigger stack and didn't feel like I needed to race at that time, so I just folded. I might have been way ahead, but then again, why risk half your stack when you don't need to? I think this was the correct play by me. SNGWiz doesn't let me model this hand, though, so I'm not sure.

(edit: the consensus of the forum-dwellers on 2+2.com is that this play sucked as well. When you get better than 2:1 odds with AK, you call. When you're not against AA or KK, you are either a slight dog to a pair or a favorite to any 2 unpaired cards. You have well over the 33% you need to justify the pot odds. Even KK is 28% or so to win, so this isn't even a horrible call. Only AA has you crushed)

In the second tourney, a $20 - I got bombed out in 16 hands. I started the downward slide by calling a raise with 55. There ended up being 3 other callers so I got the multiway pot I needed, but I didn't hit my 5 so I bailed. A few hands later I took a shot at stealing blinds with 67s, but the big blind defended. I didn't want to c-bet for 2 reasons - my stack size was already meh, and I had a decent draw (double gutter on the turn), but the draw didn't come in so I bailed again. Down to 1000. Then in the big blind I shoved over a raiser with 77. There weren't enough HUD stats this early in the tourney to know if he would fold or what his cards might be, but I was happy to see AK and not an overpair.

Things looked bleak when the flop came KK8, but I hit the miracle 7 on the turn to boat up. Then he hit the miracle 8 on the river to over-boat me. Bye-bye.

Bad poker all around, down $1 on the night. I suppose I should shut my mouth and be thankful I didn't give away my winnings from last night after all the poor decisions I made.