WPBT Satellite Thoughts

Last night's tournament was quite a roller coaster for me. I was down to the felt on two separate occasions. The first comeback was fueled by three consecutive winning hands: KK, AJs, and QQ. Nothing like a good run of cards to get you back to a playable stack.

Then things went a bit awry. Holding AQ, I ended up all-in at the river against Obie315 who had A7. Obie check-raised me on the A-high flop and I smooth called his raise and his turn bet. The 7 on the river left me with only T400 or so. That hurt.

I figured the end was near after the blinds ravaged through my measly stack, nary a hand to defend with. All of a sudden, on the button, I'm dealt the hammer. What better way to go out, I thought. So when it was folded around to me, I pushed. A big stack in the big blind said he just couldn't call with 9,3off. I showed the hammer and said, "Yes, yes you could have :)"

I doubled up once with KQ and managed to get back to T900 by the second break, far below the average chip count. (File the lack of average chip information in the Noble Poker complaint section) After the break, the blinds were T50/100 and again they passed me by with out any cards coming my way.

Then I nearly tripled up when I was on the button and found pocket T's. There were about 5 limpers when it got to me, which was rather silly if you ask me. A short stack on the button confronted with 5 limpers will most likely push regardless of their cards. Only one limper called me, showing AT. I avoided the A and got back to over T2000 with room to maneuver.

Even with a playable stack, most of the pots I played thereafter were big ones that usually saw me all-in. I busted the Venetian when I called what seemed to be an odd raise holding pocket 6's. The raise was an odd number, definitely not standard. It piqued my curiousity enough to call and see a 642 flop. When he pushed, I insta-called and busted his pocket A's.

At the final table, I was chip leader for a while. I busted another player to gain a huge stack when my AK held up agains A8 on an A-high flop.

Chatter about a deal ensued, and I agreed. I'm not much of a deal maker, and honestly consider the other bloggers friends. I may have given up some equity, but who cares? We were all playing for the seat and why not just divide up the rest evenly? I didn't want to argue about getting more of the leftover cash based on my stack size, I just didn't think it was worth debating.

As shown on Pauly's site, the hand of the final table for me was when I held A9s and saw a flop with The Fat Guy of 277 - two spades. The Fat Guy bet out T10000, which to his credit was a fantastic bet. Why? Well, here's my analysis. He called my pre-flop raise and I put him on a pocket pair. In order to find out, I'd have to raise, but the min raise of T20000 would cost me 2/3's my stack. Of course, what I failed to think about was that if I was correct, I'd have a bunch of outs. More than enough to call, and I blew it. I folded, opting to hold on to my above average stack and find another opportunity. It never came.

I doubled Wes up holding A4 on the button. Wes re-raised my pre-flop raise all-in and I called. His AK held up while my spirits didn't. My demise took place in the form of A5s. I pre-flop raised and The Fat Guy re-raised. I came over the top all-in and he paused. I was putting him on a re-steal. I was right, but he still called anyway with 89o. The fickle fate of the flop sent me packing in 3rd when a 67T hit the board. Ugh.

So close and yet so far. I felt good about my play, especially mounting the comeback I did, but in the end, it wasn't meant to happen. I made that one key mistake against Scott, but other than that my cards held up when they needed to. I'll take the chop money and perhaps parlay that into a satellite entry somewhere along the line for Event #2.

Thanks again to the Iggster for setting the whole thing up. Even though I didn't win the seat, it was yet ANOTHER fun filled evening playing with the blogger/reader collective.