WPBT Thoughts

Hey gang, bubble boy here. :) 21st out of 109 with top 18 paying. I'm not complaining though, it was a grand ole time and I lasted longer than I thought I would. In fact, with the cards I was receiving, it was actually quite easy to click fold. Here are some key hands, at least from my perspective, from last night's tourney.

Pocket 7's on the button and I limp with 3 others. The flop is K,6,2 and it's checked to me. I think I'm good and pet the pot. I get one caller and the turn is a 3. Again it's checked to me and I bet the pot again. Original caller folds. Nothing much here, just that it was the first pot I won, sometime in level 2 and it got me back to around T1400.

Pocket 7's again in EP and I come out with a raise from early position. The flop is 7,6,2 - quite a beautiful flop for me. Figuring that everyone will think the flop missed me entirely, I bet roughly 2/3 the pot. Player in LP raises me 3x my bet and I push. I'm called and see that I've cracked pocket A's. Sweet. I move into the top 20 or so and get some breathing room.

My kingdom for some cards....

Card dead is a very valid description through levels 3,4 and 5. Got nada. Any pot I won was through a blatant steal or getting a bit lucky and hitting a piece of the flop. In fact, by this time, pocket 7's was the best hand I'd seen. I had to fold A,Q to an early position raise and subsequent re-raise.

I finally caught AJo and raised it up. The flop was A-high and with the blinds increasing, decided to push. When I was insta-called, I feared the worst. Because the flop came A,Q,T - the only hands I beat were A9 and below. Luckily for me, I got called by someone with 7,8 suited on a flush draw. I managed to survive the turn and river and was back in the top 15 with a pretty healthy stack.

HAND OF THE TOURNEY:

I find pocket J's UTG, by far my best starting hand of the night. I think there are about 30 or so people left at this point as the blinds are 200/400 with 25 antes. I min-raise to 800 since at this point, T800 represents a significant portion of anyone's stack at the table. A player in MP re-raises all-in, he's shortstacked and I'm very prepared to call.

Here's the play of the day, in my book. Derek comes over the top of the original raiser and puts me on a decision for all my chips. If it's simply folded to me, I insta-call. Now I have a tough decision. I mull things for a bit then muck my J's figuring Derek has me beat and wants to isolate. I make the correct choice as Derek shows the Hiltons and the original raiser shows A,x - I forgot what x was. Just as I type out a "thank you" to Derek for saving me my stack, the flop comes J-high. Now I'm cursing him for making such a play, for truly it was the exact play he needed to make to get me to fold. If he just calls, so do I, and I take down a monster. Bottom line is: Kudos to D, you made the right play and it worked. Still....you bastard! :)

After that, my cards went a bit dead again. Which kind of sucked. With the blinds so huge, our table became nearly an all-in fest. Here's where my tourney went south. I was in the BB with K,To and a player in MP raised all-in. It was only T1300 for me to call and there was already T3200 in the pot. That was more than the right price, especially considering the range of hands players would be pushing with at this stage of the tournament. I make the right call and a player named Ash shows Q,Jo. I pat myself on the back, Barry Horowitz style. But the flop comes A,J,x. The turn is a T giving me a glimmer of hope, but the river brings another J to earn Ash the pot. I'm somewhat crippled down to T2600 or so.

My demise came in the form of K9s vs Ash's pocket 8's. I did catch a 9 on the flop, but the flop was 6,7,9. The turn gave no help to either, but the 5 on the river completed Ash's OESD and IGHN.

If I had to critique my play, I'd give me a 7 or 8 out of 10. No huge blunders, but perhaps I wasted a few too many chips early on in an attempt to chip up.

I did manage to drop the hammer on Iggy once. With less than 30 people left, I'm going to call that a ballsy move. Actually I'm just glad it worked. Who better to drop the hammer on?

Many people were wondering who Mrs_Blood was. In quite a coincidence, this person is also from my home town and sat at the same table as I the whole tourney. Alas, Mrs_Blood is not my wife, she was busy being pissed at me for unrelated unmentionables. Besides, I'm not in favor of introducing any uncertainty into my poker integrity - had it truly been Mrs_Blood, I would have a hard time explaining to everyone that we weren't colluding. Suffice to say, it was not her. You can all hazard guesses as to who it was, but until he/she comes forward, the secret is safe with me :)