Tuesday Morning at the Felt

I'll be honest with you. I've been feeling crappy all week, and Jessi and I are headed to London next Wednesday, and the last thing I need is to be sick on vacation, so I took a day off to relax. That's not the honest part. The honest part is that I'll be playing online poker the whole time, and I've been thinking about taking a day off to do that anyway.

I started at Everest Poker. I had about $12 on the account there. (Like I said, we're going to London next week so I pulled most of my stake off for spending money.) I signed up for the Chip & a Chair multi, sat down at a $5+$.50 six seat no-limit sit & go, and put $5 on a $.10 no-limit ring game to kill time while I waited for the tournaments to start. I couldn't catch crap on the regular table, so I was down to $4.55 once the other two tables were up and running. No big whoop.

The sit & go started first. I was big blind with QJ off, and caught top pair on the flop, so I bet the pot and showed my hand when the table crapped out. Then I played tighter then my prom date until I felt I had established a rep.

The multi I played the other way. I played loose the first couple of hands and pressed a crappy draw with just a couple of callers. I missed the draw, of course, and the guy that stuck it out won with a middle pair of sevens. This paid off immediately, as two hands later I caught top two pair and check raised on the flop. Here's the thing. If you've got Four Tits, and the flop shows you both of the only two overcards available, and someone check raises into you, don't call. I don't care how loose he may have been a couple of hands back, he's got it, and you're going down like a Chi Omega at a late night mixer. This hand tripled me up. You have got to love Big Slick.

With a decent stake on the multi, I devoted my time to the sit & go again. I purchased a couple of blinds on my reputation while I marked the guys that were going to stake me to the finish. You know the ones I mean. They start out loose and fast, and because there are a couple of them at the table, one of them builds an early stake. At this point the chipleader should change his play, but he can't. He's too excited by winning, and he's positive he's a better player than everyone else. He must be. Look at all the chips he's got.

I marked the guy sitting opposite, let's call him Ivan, as a likely target. He was up to 175 and just kept putting on the pressure. He particularly liked to purchase from position. So, when I caught pocket rockets in mid-field I just called them, knowing Ivan would take care of me. True to form he bet the pot from position. I raised over top to get any other stragglers off the board. Now here is where Ivan made his second mistake, his first being taking a seat at the table. He re-raised over top of me and pushed me all in! I have just established that I'm not going to be bullied with what is effectively a check-raise. What asinine thought process makes pushing me all in look like a good idea? Does he think I'm going to fold under the pressure? This is the reason Ivan, and all his brethren, make good playing partners. They assume everyone plays just as crazy as they do. Needless to say, the idiot had K3 off, doubled me up, and whimpered off into the morning a hand or two later, mumbling under his breath about the fat bastard that gets lucky with a lousy pair of Aces. Moron.

At this point the game played out pretty much as expected. With half the chips on the table, and five players left, I loosened up a little and let a couple of righteous draws feed my pile while the shorter stacks battled it out for second. Once there were just the two of us I got even looser and raised any face card pre-flop until he caught on. At that point I switched back and let him try and bully me back until I caught the right cards. One Pocket pair of Kings and it was all over.

At this point I switched back to the multi. I was up to 700, with 30 players left out of the original 200. Now the blinds switched to 15/30 with a 2.50 ante. Here is where I start to have a problem. This late in a tourney I'm a big fan of tightening up and letting the other players beat themselves. With an ante, however, it is no longer free to simply sit and wait. This provides an added pressure that, quite frankly, I don't need. I stuck around on some stupid connectors because of the pressure until I realized what I was doing, then tightened back up again. At this point, however, it was too late. My stack was cut in half when I caught a pocket pair at small blind. One all-in and the multi was over. I was in the money, but that's not saying much when the buy-in is just a dollar. Oh well, it was much needed practice. I definitely need to work on my ante game.

Now my account is at $28.60 and it's time for lunch. Better then double isn't bad for 11 am.