monthly tourney report

Lost 350 of my starting 1500 early with KJ on a king-2-2 board, facing a turn raise. Villain was straightforward player (and a luckbox, won 6 out of first 7 pots), and KJ was no good there. Easy fold, but lots of chips to lose early.

Soon after doubled up with aces vs. jacks. 2200 chips kept me in the running.

Played mostly straightforward. My table draw was excellent for awhile and stole a couple blinds until it got late and it was shovey-shovey time. Nobody was ready for this and I kind of froze the table for a round or two.

Then the tables combined from three into two and 2 excellent players got seated to my right. Damn. They started with the blind stealing and whatnot. It took me awhile to get a bead on one of the players - his raise size gave away the strength of his hand, but I didn't get a chance to do anything about this. I'll be ready next month and beyond, though.

After the second break, blinds went up and I had 7 left.

I probably screwed up my last hand. Early position guy (one of the two good players) raises 2.5 and the other good player flat calls with a nice size stack. I look down at pocket fours. Ugh. Facing both of them is suicide, but my reraise all in might be enough to knock one out and race. The flat call bothered me the most- he had the chips to race me. Do I really fold a pair with 7 blinds left?

Probably, but I wasn't good enough to do it. I shoved. Original raiser folded, flat caller called me ... pocket eights. Buh-bye in 17th place.

Fortunately for me, I have learned that the cash games that follow this tourney are really juicy. I stepped into a nice and friendly .50/.50 holdem only game and started busting things up. These guys wanted to limp into every pot and see a flop. I wanted to raise my good hands, imagine that! They still wanted to see a flop, even after my raise, and I made nice money either hitting flops or cbetting their weak range away.

I think I might have tilted one of my Friday night friends. He likes to bet, bet, bet. Raises lots of pots, sometimes without the cards to do so. Bets every street, even before seeing the next card come. His aggression is admirable - his thoughtfulness about what he might be betting into, not so much.

I don't think he liked that I three bet him a couple times. I wasn't playing around - I had the cards and situations to do so. I was ahead of his range, and I knew he would call with worse.

The last time was a classic tilt flameout. Someone straddled to $1. He raised it to $2. I made it $5 with ace-king. He called.

Flop... ten (crap).... six (double crap).... ace (whew).

He open shoves $20 into the $12 pot.

Let's see, top/top hand, drawless board (check the suits one more time - yep, rainbow), and a tilted opponent sick of my raising? Yup, I'm ahead of his range. I call.

jack-ten suited - the one suit that isn't on the board. 5 outs to beat me. Money went in as a 4-1 favorite, and the numbers held. Big pot, tilted friend heads for the rail and home.

A couple more pots like that one, and I recoup my $50 tourney buy in for a dead-even night.