Well Played.

With the Bears sucking like a giant hoover, I find my attention has drifted back to poker.  I haven't played in a while and it was nice to scratch that itch even though the results were less than desirable.  I played with some friends and had some nice moments but didn't finish in the money in our tournament.  We played some cash afterwards and I was seriously out of touch and watched more money slip away.  Not a good night for my bankroll, but it was fun to get together and see the poker gang again.

Once the poker bug is indulged it's hard to turn back so I threw some money up on a site and played some low-mid level sit and go's.  I had some immediate success that slowly faded, so I wanted to change my luck and played in a multi-table tourney.  That proved to be more profitable.  I finished 3rd in the first one I played and 7th in the other.  I made both final tables and was close to the felt in both games.  Some timely cards and some timely plays got me enough chips to make the final tables and throw some muscle around before finally falling with a couple of bad decisions.  But I'll get to that later.

I had pocket queens under the gun and decided to do what I usually don't do, I limped in rather than raising.  I had just lost a sizable portion of my chips on a pseudo bad beat and I wanted to trap with rather than protect my hand in order to get those chips back.  Limping in early position usually is a red flag that the person has a monster hand.  The amount of times that people actually raise an early position limper seems to be getting more infrequent (at least on the site and levels that I've been playing) so this tactic can be dangerous by allowing people to stay in the hand cheap.  But fortunately I got a raiser three seats from the button and everybody folds to me.  My normal play here is to re-raise about 3 times his bet, but like I said, I was going to play this hand differently, so I just called.

Flop comes Q 8 A suits irrelevant.  My initial thought wasn't "Great I flopped a set!" it was a sarcastic, "Wouldn't that just be great if he had Aces to bust me out with a higher set.  Maybe I should have re-raised him pre-flop..."  But I shoved that thought from my mind and checked.  He bet about a third of the pot.  I decided to raise here to see where he stood rather than call like I did pre-flop.  So I raised to the amount currently in the pot including his bet.  He immediately re-raises me the amount of my raise.  I'm trying to decide if he just has one ace or maybe two pair, but i figure with as much money as there is in the pot, I might as well go all in.  The amount of money in the pot is too great and if he had the Aces I was worried about, well then good for him, so I re-raise all in.  He calls.  He then proceeds to show 9 8 off suit.  He bet, and re-raised and called an all in with bottom pair, weak kicker and not a lot of draw potential.  He didn't hit a miracle draw and I doubled through him.  After the hand, he chats, "Well Played." 

Actually he typed "wp" which I am assuming is short hand chat for "Well Played."  And I am thinking to myself, I guess it was since I doubled up, but was it really well played on my part or a "poor play" on his part?  His play was saying, "I can only beat a bluff, but I'm calling anyway."  It is good to have a monster hand when your opponent thinks you are bluffing.  This is the kind of thing that happens when you raise with a weak hand and get called.  It was nice to see someone else getting caught with their hand in the "overplaying my hand" cookie jar. Because I hate it when I do that and get burned.  It was nice to be on the other end of that flame this time.

The two hands that knocked me out of each tourney were stupid decisions in calling a raise.  In the first tourney where I finished third out of 180, I was under the gun, in three way action and I have A 7 o.  My initial thought is I have the best hand and I want to protect it.  I raise 4 times the blinds and get re-raised.  In a 9 or 10 handed table this is an easy lay down.  3 handed, I am thinking he has King or Queen high as it is less likely that another Ace has hit one of the players.  Without much thought to how this guy has been playing I raise all in and immediately get called with an A Q s.  Needles to say I didn't improve and he knocked me out, just about doubling his stack I had around 45k and he had around 55k.  It bothered me that I got knocked out because I have such horrible luck playing an Ace with a medium to weak kicker late in tournaments.  I had enough chips that I could have folded and lived to fight another day, but I couldn't get past thinking that i had the best hand.

The hand that knocked me out of the other tourney 7th was even more lame on my part.  I'm the small stack at the table just having lost a huge stack calling an all in by someone with less chips than me.  I had a K J diamonds, she had A J o.  She took about two thirds of my stack.  SO I find myself  in the big blind with a 10 3 of diamonds.  The big stack of the tournament is immediately to my right in the small blind.  It's folded to him and he raises 1 and a half the blind and I immediately call thinking he is on a steal.  The flop comes 10 6 6 suits irrelevant.  He checks and I immediately go all in hitting my 10.  He has A K o and the turn of course brings a K.  I don't hit the miracle 10 on the river so I go out 7th.  this was another case of me making a rash judgment that I couldn't let go to make that pre-flop call.  I was definitely short stacked, but calling even a modest raise with a weak hand like that to "defend my blind" knocked me out.  Had I folded the blind preflop I might have somehow held on for a place or two, I would have had more prize money. 

That being said I was extremely happy with the results of the tourney.  I finished, 4th out of 180 and 7th out of 180 two nights in a row.  Well played indeed.