Zero To Sixty

Well, in the very first hand after the third break I was booted from the tournament. The hand is an excellent illustration of what happens when you have a tiny stack–you have no flexibility. You just can’t play a hand normally. Here’s what happened. I was dealt:

Now here’s the scenario: I have a stack of $3,804.88. The blinds are $800/$1600 with a $150 ante. So just taking part in the hand costs me $1600. I was under the gun, so my position was poor, but I also am facing the reality that the blinds are coming fast. I could barely get through the blinds, but doing so would put me with such a low amount of money that I would have to have an extraordinary number of successful all-ins to get back into the tournament.

So my only option is to jump all over a good hand. The hand above is certainly a playable hand, even under the gun, but it is hardly a powerhouse. My hope was that everyone would limp in to the flop, and I’d be able to hit something good or, if not, get out with only $1600 gone.

The key was for everybody to limp in. Well, so much for that–a player in late position raised to $4,000. And this is thus my dilemma: Normally I would immediately fold. But that would lower my stack to $2200 or so. If I got a good hand and doubled, all that would do is take me to where I am right now. And if I didn’t get any good hands, I’d be out quickly. The result is that the raise behind me pretty much forced me to go all in with A8. The good news is that if I hit, I would come away with over $7K, which I could work with better than the $3K I currently had. The bad news is if I don’t hit… I’m out.

My opponent turned over:

Ouch! The only good news is that I had an Ace. If an Ace dropped I’d be in good shape. Unfortunately, the odds of that happening are 15 to 1. Not good. Here’s what dropped:

And my pair of eights weren’t good enough against his two jacks. After over three hours of poker play I was out, finishing in 99th place, a mere 36 places out of the money, and quite good when you consider the tournament started with 4,059.

Still, my  bankroll stands at a depressing $0.00.

It’s not looking good for me. I hit a stretch of poor flops and then I played a hand where my brains must have left my head. It cost me about $8K in chips, and took me down to a very dangerous position with a very small stack. I currently sit with a stack of $3,800 and the tournament average is currently $43K. Unless I can double up a few times I will be out shortly.

There is an outside chance I could end in the money as the top 63 places pay, but it will be hard. Currently there are only 104 players still alive in the tournament. So… it will be possible to make it. We’ll see.

Standing with a stack of over $14K at the second break of the Saturday night Bodog $500 Freeroll. I had $4K about five minutes into the break, somewhat upset over the very lengthy run of poor hands I’ve been receiving when, boom, I get dealt AA. I turned that into a few thousand, and then, boom, one hand later, I get dealt QQ. I turned that into even more. After a couple more hands that I played strong, I’m in the second break with a stack higher than the current tournament average.

Bodog doesn’t show what your current rank is, but there are 341players left, and I’m certainly in the top half. Looking forward to the next hour of play.

So I played in the Absolute Poker Friday Night $50 Freeroll, along with nearly 5,000 other people. I guess the good news is that I finished in 120th place, which isn’t too bad considering the competition, but I was once again out-of-the-money.  I made relatively few mistakes, and when I lost a big pot due to a small mistake or a bad beat, I didn’t lose my self-control.

All in all, I feel good moving forward, even as I still sit with zero money.

At second break I’m at 132 out of 138. I guess I could consider this “good,” as the tournament started with nearly 5,000 players, but I’m not happy. I want to always be at least in the top half as the tournament runs.

I’m 257 out of 729 remaining players in the Absolute Poker Friday Night $50 Freeroll. Feeling pretty good about how I’m doing so far, although I have a long way to go.

I took part in another Bodog $500 freeroll tonight, but I exited the tourney quickly. I hit one of those streaks you simply can’t do anything about–a run of playable hands that weren’t winners. In an attempt to finesse some chips out I even played aggressively, but my opponents didn’t back down. As a result, my stack dwindled quickly, even as I played fairly well. Here’s a good example.

With my stack at $1,000 in an early round and the blinds at $5/$10, I was dealt in the big blind:

This is not a bad big blind draw, and I limped in for $10. The small blind raised it to $35. That wasn’t a good sign, but with an ace in my hand, a flush draw, and a mere $15 to potentially snag $50 (close to 5 to 1 odds), I figured that it was a small price to pay to see the flop. Which came…

Bingo! Top pair on the flop! Now all I had to worry about is what the small blind was raising pre-flop. The odds were against him having KK or AA and him flopping a set. My best guess was that he had QQ, AT, or something similar. I also considered there being a small chance he had AK. Of all the combinations, the only one that I considered realistic and that scared me was if he had an ace and a higher kicker, as my kicker was a lowly 5.

Small blind came out with a modest bet of $50, which I expected. I wanted to test him immediately (unlike my performance the previous night, where my passivity cost me lots of chips), so I raised him another $50 to $100 even. The idea was certainly good, but I should have come in stronger. The truth is that I didn’t want to lose more chips than I needed to, but I needed to push him off the idea that I may have had a K pair, and I certainly needed to destroy any flush draw pot odds he might have. A proper raise here would have been $150 or so. That would have put the pot at $250, with him having horrible flush draw pot odds.

Anyway, he re-raised me, and since he did raise preflop, the flush draw talk is probably moot. As it was, I would have folded right there, but the raise was only $50, and a call was certainly in order to see the next card. I called.

A good card in that it didn’t change the balance on the table. There was still a flush draw, but I had top pair. Small blind ended matters right there, however, by betting the the pot with $365. I folded on the spot.

I lost $170, which took me to $830, not a horrible place but certainly not the way you want to start a tournament. All told, I believe I played this hand okay. Betting strong on the flop would most likely have gotten me re-raised and led to a fold–making me lose about the same amount of money. On the other hand, I am sure that doing that was a better play.

What followed were a number of hands that were playable, some even in the face of raises, but in the end poor flops and turn cards required me to fold with a loss. I did make a big mistake, however,  and it was the clincher: I called a $200 preflop raise with AT suited. When the T hit the flop, and I had top pair and Ace kicker, I couldn’t have been happier. I bet $215, and was aghast when the preflop raise fellow raised me to nearly all-in. I was clearly facing a higher pocket pair and folded. That took me down to a couple hundred bucks, and when I lost a good all-in to double my hand on a bad beat, my tournament was over.

So here I am at the end of day two with the same result: $0.00.

Tonight was my first attempt to earn money to start my voyage to $60K. I entered the Bodog $500 freeroll. First prize: $120. I started out well, and up until the first break I was near the top. I then hit a series of setbacks. These weren’t major setbacks but smaller ones. I would call them small mistakes. Some weren’t even really mistakes. Here’s a good example:

I was in the big blind with a stack of $8,470. Big blind was $100.00. I was dealt:

One player raised to $200, and here was my first mistake. With a crap hand, I called. So we go to the flop:

This was much better! I had top pair, and the possibility of a flush or straight was minimal. Granted, I had a lousy kicker, but there was already a second pair on the board. The only thing I had to worry about was a pocket pair Js, Qs, or Ks (and 9s!). I didn’t worry too much about a 9, as it was quite unlikely that anyone would raise preflop with a non-paired 9 in their hand, and the odds of a flopped four of a kind is astronomical. Still, there was that chance of the pocket royals.

I led out with a bet of $100, figuring I had the best hand at the table. Mr. “preflop raise” reraised me $100, and here is where I made another small mistake. At that point I should have re-raised something big like double the pot or just folded. With my strong hand, raising big was probably the right play. If he calls my big raise, I know he has a monster, and I can get out quickly after a check. If he doesn’t that means I won the hand. Instead, I called.

In my head I felt I had the best hand, and I reasoned that an extra $100 was a small price to pay to move ahead. This isn’t an unreasonable thought, but the reality is that he isn’t re-raising unless he is bluffing or has something substantial, and with what was showing on the table, it had to be a pocket pair of jacks or higher or, goodness, even pocket 9s. Still, I forged ahead. The next card dealt was:

I tend to be aggressive in certain spots and one of those is when I think I have the best hand. I still held out hope that was the case here, so I led with $120 bet. This was mistake number three. Leading with a check here and seeing how strong his raise would be was absolutely a better play. The raise should have been bigger and occurred on the flop. But here it was a mistake.

As it is, he re-raised me again a small $120. I called, which was clearly another small mistake. By now, he was making it clear that he had a big hand. A queen dropped, and he didn’t even bat an eyelash after I bet. So it is likely he had KK, AA, or 99. All of which blew me away. Still, I forged ahead. Next up came…

This was a total nothing card, but it made it clear that there was no flush and no straight in play. In hindsight, a spade here may have worked in my favor, as the flush draw may have succeeded in scaring him out, and his reticence to bet may have solely been based on worrying about the flush draw (although I think it more likely that he was slow playing me into death by papercut!).

At this point, it was down to my top pair and whatever he had in his hand. Only five hands beat me: Pocket aces, Kings, jacks, a queen, or some 9 combination. I very foolishly felt that it was unlikely he had any of these. I bet $440. Clearly I wasn’t reading all the signals over the past few cards. He definitely had one of these! What was I thinking? Any way, he raised the pot (now standing at $1,930), and I folded.

In poker terms it wasn’t a disastrous hand. I lost $960, which was significant but not overwhelming when you consider I started with $8,470. The trouble is that I had just played a few hands like this, and my stack, which was near $10K after the break, was now down to $7510.

Psychologically, these small losses did a number on me, and this is one thing I absolutely need to improve upon, because these small losses led me to just chuck the whole tournament a few hands later. Feeling depressed at my stack getting smaller, I was dealt:

This is an very good starting hand. In fact, it is the 22nd best starting hand in hold’em. I felt good about finally winning some chips back. Unfortunately, a fellow to my right went all-in before the flop. Now he had a large stack, so it is remotely possible that he was trying to bully the table (and I faintly tried to convince myself of that), but the reality is that he had a strong hand, and most likely an extremely strong hand.

However, I saw his huge stack (he had over $18,000 to my $7,000), and I could think of only one thing: Doubling up! All of the small losses had beaten me down, and–despite the fact that I still had a stack more than double the tournament average–I felt I had to make a statement. I simply wanted the death by papercut to end. It was all or nothing! In short, I lost confidence in my ability to put together some small and medium-sized wins to climb back into the upper echelons of the tournament.

So I went all in.

Everyone else folded and we were mano y mano. He turned his cards over, and–no surprise–they were big:

In head-to-head situations, pocket pairs are monsters. This was worse because we shared a queen. So even if I paired up with a Q that dropped, he would still win with 3 of a kind. So I had only three hopes: A king to drop or four hearts or clubs to drop. Needless to say, the odds of either of those happening were very very slim. Here’s how it played out:

Any hope of a flush was now gone. My only hope now was a K.

One last hope.

And I was out of the tournament.

One of the most important skills in poker is willpower and self-control. You need to steadfastly play the right way, even when you suffer a series of setbacks or you can’t seem to catch a break. Just when you try to “break the rules” or bend them to fit your circumstances is when you start to really careen out-of-control. That happened to me today.

So, as a result, my first step toward $60,000 ends with me not having actually moved at all.

My bankroll still sits at $0.00.