I played a HOE 70+10 tournament on Saturday and actually did just about as well as I could have hoped, I think. Early on I was seated at a table with Nelly, me, and E at one end, Stu on the other, and a bunch of people who had no clue in between. And when I say no clue, I mean really no clue. We were asked what cards you needed to make a low, what the nut low was, how many cards you needed to play from your hand in O8, etc. Ummm, ship it? LOL
I was pretty card dead, but managed to make some moves with marginal hands and pure aggression. It was pretty awesome, actually. I felt like I was playing really well. I don't know why, but when I've been up for a really long time, I tend to have a 3 hour zone before I completely crash where I play awesome poker. If only I could get in that zone every time I sit down at a table. Ah well.
So I'm hanging tough and playing pretty aggressively...The tourney structure was pretty bad, so I think that kicked my butt to play more aggressively too. I pussed out on one hand against Stu where I should have bet at the end and he probably would have folded to my low, but oh well.
I make it to the final table, and fold QTo under the gun to a raise in the HE round. Pops (who is dealing) looks at my cards and scolds me...and then proceeds to put QT on the flop and another T on the river. Well, I still stand by my decision to not waste a decent number of my chips on QTo, under the gun. The guy to my right took out a few players and then we were down to 7 players left at the final table by the time the O8 round started.
The first hand of O8 and I get dealt a hand with some good potential. A9h23d. I call the blinds and the flop comes Qc4h6h. Ummm...Bet! By the time the turn comes off, I have a significant part of my stack in the middle and I'm thinking I'm sitting pretty. I have the nut low draw with counterfeit protection, the nut flush draw, a gutshot straight draw... and I'm against two other players who I feel are pretty weak. The turn is some kind of huge blank for my hand, but it doesn't put anything out there for anyone else either. Maybe it was a Ts or something. Then I keep betting while saying to Pops: "I have like more than 20 outs here Pops, you better get me there!" He looks at me like I'm fucking crazy and says: "you have like your whole stack -$300 in there, how can you not be there yet?"
The river is a puketastic board pairing 6. I kind of wish I had said "pair the board hold the low" before it came off b/c if I had, I think I could have scooped the pot with crapola. Trying not to look sick, I toss my last $300 into a pot that has to be at least 50x that. Amazingly, the guy to my left auto folds. Even more amazingly, the guy to my right who is now last to act looks like he is about to fold! Please fold, I am saying in my head....PLEASE!!!! I don't know why anyone in their right mind would fold for $300 more, but.... After at least 40 seconds of thought he calls. I flip over my cards and say: "I completely missed." The guy called me the whole way with AKxx (if the turn was indeed a T, I guess he had a Broadway draw) and ends up scooping the pot with AK high...in O8. And then he tells me he almost folded. "I wish you did," I say. That would have been so sick!
I would play it over again the same way every time, but it's beyond me how I continually brick so badly! If I had won, I would have been the definitive chip leader. I could have folded into the money and had a real good shot at winning. Heck, even if I had only made a low and ended up chopping I would have doubled up. I wish I had "bricked" by pairing one of my non Ace cards. *sigh*
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