Bubbled Again

before discussing my exit on the bubble for the second week in a row at the radisson's $100 entry thursday night tournament let me tell u about steven's quick and exciting exit. on about the tenth hand or so, someone made a substantial raise from early position with two callers before
steven found 2d 3d in the sb. he decided to call and hit the dream flop - A 4 5 rainbow. he made a small opening bet and the original raiser made it T350 to go. one of the callers moved all-in and steven said he couldn't get his chips in fast enough. the original raiser also called. the original raiser had AK. the first all-in player had a set of fours. the player with the set of fours filled up on the river when a second five hit the board. obviously, the player who moved all-in with the set of fours made the correct play. the overcall by the original raiser is a bit ridiculous. if a player cannot lay down tptk in this situation when could they ever.

i was able to acquire a fair amount of chips near the the beginning of the third blind level (10 – 20). an early position player limped and a gringo two to his left raised it to T80. a player in late position called. i woke up with KK in the sb so i re-raised to T240. the original raiser moved all-in and the other player folded. without hesitation, i pushed my chips while saying, “i don't see how i can make the monster laydown here.” my hand held up so i was in good shape. That put me just below T3000. when we broke to two tables i had about T3200. i was able to raise my chip total for a while – mostly i made many uncalled pre-flop raises to pick up the blinds. i think i only played two hands post-flop and won both without much resistance. i then went card dead for an extended period.

after having my stack up to about T5400, i entered the final table with about T3600. there were at least three stacks that were smaller than mine when we started and a couple about the same as mine. i picked up blinds and antes once during the first orbit and then was not presented with a good situation to get my chips involved for almost two full orbits. in the mean time, one player had already exited so we were down to nine and the tournament paid the top eight this week. this week i made the exact opposite mistake from last week – i was too aggressive. i was in the bb with a limper plus the sb. i had Js 8s and the flop was 9 10 X. i moved all-in and was called by the original limper and the big stack at the table. he held J 10 which eliminated the J as a potential out and i could not hit my straight. I should have just check – folded and waited for one or two others to go out. the week before, i needed to acquire chips and this past week i needed to survive and make the money. the other factor i was oblivious to was that the original limper was the chip leader and unlikey to lay his hand down if he had a piece of that flop.

steven got involved in a pretty heavy cash game. almost every pot had a straddle and/or a mississippi straddle so this was more like a 4 – 8 no-limit hold'em game. several of the looser locals were in the game as well as this kid, heinrich, who is a loose aggressive player, but very good. simply from a psychological standpoint i am not ready to sit down in a game like that. for me, one of the most fascinating and challenging aspects of becoming a better poker player is that i have to learn to shed many of my natural tendencies. i tend to be reserved and cautious and that is not generally rewarded as a poker player. i need to develop a much healthier (at least for a poker player) disregard for money. money is the way we keep score and in order to win big one must be willing to gamble and place money at risk.

unlike most poker players i am not a gambling junky. i do not play blackjack or craps or bet biug on sports. i do not get the enormous rush that others do from gambling. for me, i am turned on by the intellectual and psychological aspects of the game. I am learning and i will continue to develop. this is only the beginning. i understand the basics very well, even if i have not completely mastered them. that will come with experience. when i think of the differences between steven as players i tend to forget that he has been playing this game for about 8 ½ years and i have been playing it for about 2 ½. when it comes to discussing poker and poker strategy things have never become heated between us. we can criticize each other openly and neither of us ever take it badly.