Suckout City

Well, it's been an interesting couple of days, at least in the poker world. Once I made that post yesterday morning, I shuffled my butt down to Green Valley Ranch to get into their 10:00 am No Limit tournament.

I was expecting a $65 buy-in, but was happy to find out that it was only $45 when I showed up at the desk to register. Turns out, there were 29 players at three tables, and one of my buddies was actually sitting next to me when the cards went in the air.

Now, I always joke about 'folding my way to fourth place', but I was catching big cards early on--enough that I was able to run some absolutely sick bluffs, and within the first half hour, I had a monster chip lead. There were re-buys available, and I knocked a couple of people out twice to pad my lead. Once the re-buy period was over, I had a dominating stack and was able to push people around, and nobody wanted to tangle with me. A nice position to be in.

About an hour into the tournament, when the blinds were 100/200, I was on the small blind and looked down to see a pair of black Sevens. The player that was under the gun raised it to $800, and a player two seats past him went all-in. Now, the all-in guy had a short stack, like maybe $1800 or so, but the UTG player had about $4500. I was sitting on about $21,000 at the time. The all-in guy was an easy call, but I didn't want to go up against two players with a medium pair, so I thought about it for a second and went all-in, trying to discourage the guy under the gun from splashing around in 'my' pot. I figured him for pocket Tens or pocket Jacks, and because he was a solid player, I also figured that he didn't want to bank his tournament life on hand like that with two other players to beat.

As soon as I said 'all-in', you could see the look of frustration cross his face. He agonized over his next move, saying stuff like--

I know I have the best hand here...

I think you two have the exact same thing and I'm in the lead...

How can I lay this down???

So yeah, we were both thinking the same thing--that the all-in player had something like Ace-Queen or Ace-King, but I knew my hand was better than that, but still probably a huge underdog to the third player. That's why I wanted him out of the pot.

He took about a minute or two of agonizing before he finally showed his pocket nines and mucked them.

The all-in player said, Yep--You had me beat!, and I concurred. And you could tell that the guy was just really ticked off about his lay-down.

But then, the real craziness manifested itself when me and Mr. Short Stack turned up our cards for the showdown. I had a pair of black sevens, he had a pair of red sevens!

Everyone started laughing because the guy who folded had said I know you guys have the same hand (of course he thought we both had Aces with a big kicker).

So we were expecting a chopped pot, but the flop came out with three clubs. So I called out Gimme an Ace of Clubs!, and I'll be damned if that wasn't the very next card to come off the top of the deck. It was sheer pandemonium at the table--everybody just went nuts when they saw the turn, and I raked a nice pot, adding to my lead.

Basically, I knocked the guy out of the tournament with a running four-card suckout before the river.

Things calmed down somewhat after that, and about an hour later, we were down to ten players. So I sent Dougie a text message -- Chip leader at the final table, bitch!

I was feeling like quite the Poker God at the time, but I guess the real deities figured I needed a lesson in humility, so I went card dead for the next 45 minutes or so. It was ugly--a never-ending stream of crap like 5-2 offsuit. What made it worse was that I got the worst seat draw possible. When we came to the final table, I landed on the big blind. And twice more I was on the big blind when they announced 'Blinds are going up next hand' so basically I had to pay double blinds. And I couldn't defend for shiat--I just couldn't catch any cards.

Finally, I caught pocket deuces and the short stack went all-in, so I called. He had Ace-Jack and paired up, costing me about $3000 more than I'd already frittered away with blinds and antes. After an hour or so at the final table, the blinds got to be 1000/2000, and I was down to my last $7500. I was on the button and looked down to see El Mon-yo del Diablo, Ace-Queen.

Ugh.

My hatred for that hand is well-documented, but I was about to be blinded off so I had to make a stand. Of course the dude in the big blind, who had me covered by about a grand, called. He had pocket Kings, my Ace never got any help, and I went out in sixth place, two spots away from the money.

I was a little pissy--you always are when you bust out of a tournament, especially when you are playing so well. But the fact that I played for three hours and just barely got a whiff of the money was the real downer. I was truly playing my A-game yesterday, and when we got to the final table I was supremely confident that I'd win the thing outright. But when you get no cards for so long, no amount of skill in the world is gonna save you. There's still a small element of luck involved, which is one of the main reasons why poker is so appealing. Every now and then you get spectacularly lucky.

But of course, I can't be too upset. I got in cheap, I played great, I had a lot of fun (the other players were all really cool and we had a lot of laughs at the table). Had I not folded a King-high nothing a few hands before the Ace-Queen debacle, I would've scooped an unbelievable four-way pot and probably went a little deeper in the tournament. But you can't dwell on the lay-downs. It was the right decision under the circumstances. Besides, almost going wire-to-wire with the chip lead is not that easy. And that's what makes no-limit hold'em so interesting--You can go from King of the World to flat-ass broke in two hands.

But like Patton so famously said, I love it. God help me I do love it so.

I didn't stick around to see how the final table turned out--I came home to make some lunch. It was around 2 pm by then, so I figured Kimmy was finally awake, so I called to wish her happy birthday and share my exploits with her. Of course, her response was Well, sometimes that's what happens when you gamble...

But she's not a poker player, except for the video kind, and I had to lay one of my favorite quotes on her. Poker isn't gambling unless you're drinking. But she's all about the bottom line, and since I had no winnings to report, I don't think the message is gonna stick.

Anyhow, I spent the balance of the afternoon watching the US Open, rooting for Phil and Rocco, and trying to hex Tiger's putter. I don't know why, but I'm just not a fan of Tiger Woods anymore. It's like rooting for the house in blackjack. But my hexes didn't work, Rocco lost his spot alone atop the leader board, and Phil didn't hit a fairway all afternoon. So it turned out to be a somewhat disappointing afternoon for me.

Being a budget-conscious dude, especially after not collecting any money that I felt I was entitled to at the tournament, I decided to just stay home last night. I got online, ran into Sticky in the T2V chatroom, and she talked me into re-loading PokerStars and watching her play in a big tournament. So that's what I did--Friday night in Vegas, and I stayed home and watched Sticky play an online poker tournament for almost four hours. Yes, I am a huge loser dork. But we had fun chatting and laughing it up like we did in the old days of hooking up the webcam and Yahoo messenger, and staying up all night playing tournaments.

And even though I wasn't playing, it was still fun to watch, although she went card-dead at the end and her results for the night were much like mine earlier in the day.

I finally couldn't take it anymore, and went to bed around 11:00 last night. I got some good sleep, but woke up around five o'clock this morning and made a pot of coffee. Since there were no changes to the Internet since I'd gone to bed, I was browsing the PokerStars site, seeing what kind of satellites and micro-tournaments they offered. And, like a basement-dwelling dork, I made a minimal deposit to re-activate my account.

And then I played in two quick sit-n-go's that reminded me of why I left the online poker world in the first place. Pocket Jacks cracked by some toolbag with 5-6 offsuit, and pocket Aces not only getting cracked, but coming in fourth place in a four-way pot.

I think I'll stick to live poker.

As far as the rest of my day goes, I'm just chillin' around the house, doing a few pre-move projects, and I'll probably bang around in the kitchen some before settling in to watch the Open. I've got to work at 3:00 this afternoon, so I'm figuring on a full eight-hour shift and a full wallet when I come home later tonight.

I'll make my money at the poker table one way or another, dammit.

Mikey

UPDATE: While drinking my coffee, I played in another online tourney, winning the whole thing, and doubling up my initial deposit. I still got some mad skillz.