The Good…

Last night, I played in the WWdN and the WWdN Second Chance at Poker Stars. (For those of you who have no idea what I’m talking about, WWdN = Wil Wheaton dot Net and they are weekly tournaments that many bloggers play in.) It was my first time playing in a blogger tournament since early 2006 and my first time playing in a WWdN. I mainly was doing it to interact with other bloggers but it also was a chance to break the cash game monotony and have some fun.

Things started out well. I picked up pocket threes on the opening hand, raised from middle position, and took down the blinds.

The first key hand for me came with 50/100 blinds. (Note: Key-hand is a hand out of the ordinary. It’s not winning a big pot with a large pocket pair or the nuts. They are key-hands where I actually had a decision to make that directly influenced my results.) I had ace king off-suit in the small blind and HeffMike raised to 300. He had been raising often so at worst I probably had a coin flip. However, I can’t re-raise significantly without pot-committing myself. Therefore I just pushed all in and was happy to take down a small pot. HeffMike scared me though when he took a while before folding and he later commented that he had pocket nines. I am glad he didn’t call. I wasn’t ready to risk my tournament life.

The next major hand occurred when the blinds were 100/200. I had the King and Ten of Spades in the Big Blind. Things are folded around to JPSnow in the small blind who raised all-in and had me covered. I insta-called and JP turned over Queen Two off-suit. A ten came out on the flop and I held on to double up while JP is now crippled. Of course, JP was not happy with my play here and remarked “ewwww… you call K 10…. 10 bbs w/ K10 lmfao”. I was surprised but pleased to see that DuggleBogey and bdidde came to my defense with comments about JP pushing too often. Perhaps I shouldn’t be surprised but you don’t see comments like that in my cash games often. However, JP insisted that it was a “–EV call” and I am “60-40 most of the time there at best.”

Now normally I wouldn’t pay this much attention to comments made by other players; however, this was one of the main draws of the tournament for me. I figured that a lot of the players know each other and there would be lots of talking. I didn’t personally know anyone but I recognized a lot of names either from running across them playing previously or from coming across their names in various blogs. Thus I feel obligated to defend my call. JP is right and I am 60-40 at best making that call normally. However, I didn’t feel that this was a normal situation. JP was surrounded by a group of small-ish stacks. We had enough chips that we weren’t dead but not enough to really do anything accept play tight and wait for a good situation. I noticed that when JP was isolated pre-flop against one or two of us he would push all in and force us to fold or risk everything. I inferred for this move to be made as often as I had seen it, he would either have to be getting a nice run of cards or he was pushing with an expanded range of hands. I went for the latter and was correct. The best hand held up and I earned a critical double up.

The next major hand was one of my two “mistake” hands. I had Ace Deuce off-suit on the button. I just called and we saw the flop. The flop was jack high with three hearts. I had the ace of hearts. Budohorseman led out of the small blind with a 2/3 pot bet. Weak_player folded from the big blind and I called. The turn was a queen of spades. It’s no help. Budo bet 1800 and I folded. I felt like I misplayed the hand by playing so passively. I should have either raised on the button with an ace or folded. I also should have either semi-bluffed the flop or folded. I didn’t have the pot odds to hit the flush card on the turn and probably not many implied odds unless Budo had a high flush too. I basically gave away 1/3 of my chip stack.

The last hand I want to mention is my second “mistake.” I had suffered two recent rough hands. For one, I had Decker711 all in and I had him dominated. However, he pulled out a split. Then he won a big coin toss to make me the short stack with 3 people left. I then picked up Ace Nine off-suit on the button. It’s a good hand three handed and I raised a little less then three times the big blind. It was a weak raise looking back. DuggleBogey called from the big blind. The flop was Queen Queen Six rainbow. Duggle checked and I made a continuation bet for 2/3 of the pot. Duggle check-raised me all-in. I requested time and thought for forever. Duggle could have been making that play with any poker pair, any ace, any queen, and any 6. However, he also could realize that the flop was unlikely to have helped me and put me to a decision for all my chips knowing I would have to call with nothing. I folded and gave up a big pot. At the time I thought it was probably a good fold and that I was behind. However, the more I think about it and the way Duggle had been playing all tourney, the more sure I have become that I should have called. It was just too critical of a pot to give up on. After that hand, I pushed all-in with queen-nine and Decker711 busted me with a queen-ten.

I took third in a tournament I felt I could have won. Both Duggle and Decker played great as did many of the other entrants. I also finished on the bubble in the second chance H.O.R.S.E. event when my two pair in stud was cracked by straight flush that I believe was made on Seventh Street. However, I donked my way to the bubble in that so I didn’t mind too much. The most important thing about all this was that I had more fun playing online poker then I had had in a long time. It was refreshing and I look forward to doing it again in the future.