Played in a couple tournaments last night in my regular home game. In the first, a $10 buy-in six-handed, winner-take-all, single table donk-n-go, I felted in 6th place when my trip As nine kicker got derailed by trip As jack kicker confirming yet again that Ax hands below AQ are like high school cheerleaders, fun to look at but likely to end up flaking on you. As a general rule, I stay away from the likes of AT and A9 but rationalized playing them here because we were short-handed (6 players) and the blind structure was steep. So much for that.

The second was a $40 buy-in (one allowed rebuy) single table tournament with nine players. I managed to take third in that one on the back of a couple of interesting hands. First, late in the tournament I savaged the same player who bounced me from the first tournament when my KK filled up on the turn. Interestingly, he didn't reraise my pre-flop raise with his jacks. I'm an advocate of reraising with JJ and QQ preflop; I'm happy to take the pot down right there and not face the 50%+ chance I'll be seeing overcards on the flop.

Odds of overcards to your pocket pair hitting the flop

And if I do get repopped, I can pretty much get away from my hand if I'd like. In any event, he didn't reraised and smooth called my EP raise from the button. Flop was 44x; I potted the flop, he called. I boated on the turn when a K hit and checked. He checked behind. When a blank fell on the river, I pushed and he insta-called off all but 200 or so of his chips. That pretty much put me in good shape for the next couple of rounds. Hand #2 showed up when we were four-handed with the blinds at 400/800. With a 9-10k stack, I pushed from under the gun with 77. The big stack called and, amazingly, the short stack at the table called. We showed down 77 v AQo (the big stack) v 22 (the short stack). The AQ prevailed when the board came a nauseating T9KK9 counterfeiting my 7s. Fortunately, the 22 player had a shorter stack so I pocketed $80 for coming in 3rd. After the hand, I was talking with a friend about the lack of awareness of the money position by the 22 player. Given my pushing range and the quick call by the big stack, you'd think he'd sense one of us had a pocket pair and he was in tough shape. Not that I'm complaining, mind you.

Overall, not a bad session, up a little bit and happy with my play. Except the A9 hand. Still kicking myself over that one!

Anonymous says

sounds like a lot of fun!

12/03/06

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