Sloe Times

So with the mortal wound I dealt my bankroll on Monday, I'm back to hitting the SNGs to rebuild. I'm attacking the $10+1 on Party and the first two attempts didn't go so well. I think this was because I was actually paying attention and trying to play them like I would a ring game. I know this isn't how they should be played but some habits are hard to break right away. So, 3rd times the charm right?

The early rounds:
This time I fire up the tail end of "50 First Dates" *sigh* Drew... Where was I? Oh, anyway so I'm watching the end of that and trying to put on a folding exhibition which was harder to do than you would think. About the second hand in the game I played JTo in late position... I told you the habits are hard to break, fortunately the flop gave me 9Q for my open ended which was enough for my aggressive self to bet everyone out so I started out +105 early. AKo in the big blind and tried to put a short stack out of his misery by betting to put him all-in with a gutshot straight draw. That didn't work out so well so I ended up doubling him up. :( Then I caught KQs on the button and scraped again back up to slightly above the start. And then I told myself that I was back to the starting point and I needed to chill out and let the field clear itself out some. This was level 1 and I didn't make a go at a hand again until the blinds were 25/50 (level 3).

A couple of casualties later:
I look up to see AQs in early position towards the tail end of round 3. My short stacked nemesis raises it to 100 and I go ahead and shove all-in to isolate. He called, but this time he had ATs and didn't catch anything. The table is now down to 7 and I'm +215 from the start. A couple of hands later I'm the BB and the blinds are 50/100. I have 74o but the table is passive and I get to see the flop of 3,2,2. No sense in dispelling any illusion of a possible BB special so I lead out and scrape the pot and now I'm +415. With the blinds getting up there I'm starting to pay a little closer attention. Next I find QTs UTG so I figure to try and steal the blinds and lead out with 3x the BB. The fellow in seat 9 shoves and I think that if I fold now, I'll still be above the start but I also figure that if I fold I'm setting myself up to be bullied by the big stacks. Honestly, this was a dumb move, but I called it anyway. The flop is A,9 of my suit and a 5. The turn brings me the flush with 4s, and the river is a K. I doubled up with my flush vs. his pocket jacks. Now I'm the big stack and the very next hand I'm the BB with pocket 4s. UTG makes it 200 to go and the SB calls and I figure that it's worth a half priced bet to call with my pair. The dealer hits me with 4,2,J and when it checks to me I pot it to scrape again. At this point, I don't think I ever looked back. I had built up a nice stack and a nice table rep that let me steal a few orphaned pots.

The Final 3:
The clincher in the 3 way was the all in by the short stack with his A9 vs my AK when he tried to steal my blind. After that there were 4 hands to the end, The first two I stole, the 3rd I folded and I would have folded the 4th except that #2 only called the BB so I got to see the flop with my T7o. Which prompted my only tricky play of the whole tournament. The flop was 7,T,3 and up to this point if I caught on the flop I bet out and just played my hand. This time though, I check and so does #2. The turn is a 4, and now I bet out just the pot. Previous hands I had been betting 2x the pot (being the big stack has it's privledges) so by feigning some weakness he opts to be aggressive and come over the top of me with his flush draw at which point he's basically pot committed and I put him all-in. He's on a flush draw vs. my two pair. The river was really nice to him, it gave him his flush. Unfortunately, the card that gave him his flush gave me the house and that was the ball game.

Reflection:
As I've written this up I've thought about how I played and where I made some grievous mistakes and what I did well. All in all I think I did the right thing by finally sitting out the first few rounds. Going through this puts into stark contrast some of the differences in 'playable hands' between NL and limit play. This is even more true for tournament play. In the previous two SNG attempts I didn't and I got myself in a position where even with the best hand at the time, I was risking the whole tournament with two more cards to come. I'll be at this until the bankroll is back to a proper level so hopefully my NL play will be back in shape by the 22nd.

Speaking of which:
In case you've been living under the proverbial rock in the poker blogging community, the following announcement from Iggy should serve as a reminder.

Please sign up for the Monty Memorial Poker Blogger Tournament, open to all poker bloggers and poker blog readers for a whopping $20. I need signups finalized by NEXT Thursday. As in, I'll be sending them in around noon of that day. ANYONE CAN PLAY!!!

Please sign up for Pacific Poker ASAP, by using my link or not. Then email me with your Pacific screen name and email address that you used to sign up. I'll probably post the list of players signed up this weekend to make sure everyone who wants to play is signed up. So far we have plenty of great folks like Hank, TheFatGuy, Pauly & Maudie signed up and ready to play. Seriously, playing with the bloggers is always a blast.

Good night, and thanks for all the fish. Also, remember that walruses have the second largest male organ on the planet... I have the first. *ba-dum-bum*