I recently finished Gus Hansen's new book and I'm in the mood to play a live game of poker. The last three days I've tilted off a big part of my Full Tilt bankroll and online poker is making me angry.. as usual. I call up a friend and fellow poker player and we head to Blackhawk for the Wednesday night boy's club. We find a 7:00pm tournament at Golden Gates casino and settle in.....
Early game: I have the intention of starting slow and turning it up gradually. However, poker is a cruel mistress and as luck would have it I wake up to 3 pairs and a two face cards on the first lap. Ok, you have to roll with the punches, right? I'm playing solid and feeling good about the tournament. My opponents have only seen one hand and it took down the pot. By the first break I've doubled my chip stack and am feeling confident about my play. Gus' book was a great reminder that poker, after all, isn't really a card game. Reading his book has helped me loosen up a little bit and take advantage of places where I sense weakness. All in all, I'm off to a great start in the tournament.
Mid Game: After break I donk off a bit of my stack and before I can reclaim my chips I'm moved to another table. This table is wasted! Perfect! Aside from providing free entertainment they are great targets. There are even few players who have me covered. After pointing out to the dealer that he forgot to raise the blinds, I'm whisked away to yet another table. Two table changes in 30 minutes and a trail of chips to prove it....
The Tank: After playing very solid, testing all of my opponents and running into very little resistance I find it difficult to change gears. This, I believe, is the downfall of plenty of otherwise fantastic poker players. I violate two of my tournament principles and the cost is, of course, my tournament life. The first principle is to get a good read of my table after I've been moved. The second principle is to stick to the game plan with marginal hands and stay out of trouble.
The Hand: Two hands in to my new table I look down at 88. The blinds are 300/600 and I've got about 8500 chips. I'm third to act and having seen a few of these players at other tables I know that they like to see cheap flops. I limp in for 600. Note that this in itself is a mistake in my book - there's no reason to limp out of position with middle pair and this many chips. Raise or fold. You could possibly make a case for it with more information about the table or a larger stack. Lumberjack behind me limps in and the big blind checks. The flop comes K73 with two spades - not a bad flop for 88 with two limpers. The table checks it around and the turn card comes out - another K. There are only two kings left in the deck and surely one of my opponents would have raised pre-flop with a big king, or at minimum on the flop with a weak king given a flush draw on the board. All in all this is a good card for me. The blind checks and I shove in 1200 chips which is about 2/3 of the pot. Stop.
At this point I should be ready to fold to any resistance. The plan was to limp in with 88, hope a few people do the same and try to flop a set. Now I've committed about 20% of my stack to a marginal hand and deviated from the plan.
Lumberjack behind me pops it to 3500. This should be an easy read. He's excited to re-raise the pot and this is a scary board, so he deserves some credit. Two eights are not likely to beat any made hand that he could be holding. It's possible that he thinks I'm trying to steal the pot and he's putting me to the test, but let's replay the hand up to this point.
Lumberjack limped in, which means he probably has either a weaker drawing hand or a small-medium pair. I won't put him on anything worse since he's accumulated quite a few chips by this point. It's possible that he has a stronger hand, but I just don't see it. He checks the flop and re-raises on the turn. It's still not likely that he has a king, given the flush draw on the board and lack of action up until now. The possible hands I can imagine he might re-raise with are then ace/rag of spades on a flush draw or 33 or 77 for a full house. In my opinion, a strong case can be made for any of these three hands while leaving some possibility that it's a complete bluff. In any of these situations, the prospects for my 88 are not worth the rest of my chips.
Back to the action - There's 6800 in the pot, I have 6700 chips left and Lumberjack has me covered. The cost to call is about a third of my stack, so that's not an option. I'm sure about my read on the kings and the thought of Lumberjack flopping a set completely eludes me. I'm being offered the chance to double up and my co-pilot was knocked out a long time ago. I push all in over the top, he calls and turns over 77 showing the full house. I'm drawing dead. A classic mistake....
