Well, I Didn’t Win
[Editor's Note: All names used below were shortened to protect the innocent... and the guilty...]
Last night, I finally cracked $200 in my Full Contact Poker bankroll. It was awesome. I was being kind of dumb about it – refusing to stop playing until I got that last $2.50. I actually went down by nearly $9 before I went on a rally to get up to $212. I was pretty darn happy with that when I was done. But it really was stupid to play with a goal. I’d say I’ll never do it again… but that’d probably be a lie.
This morning was filled with waffles and Star Trek TNG. Both of those things make me quite happy.
I was still wearing my PJs when I decided that I’d sign on to play some poker. I couldn’t get anyone to join me at a shorthanded Omaha 8 table, but while I waited, I started poking around the tournaments. There, I found an O8 Limit tournament for $20 + 2. I picked up a pillow and hugged it.
Here I was, just having doubled my initial bankroll on this site (not including bonus money – I keep that separate), and I was thinking about paying entry into a tournament that my bankroll couldn’t really afford. I hemmed and hawed, and finally signed up when I noticed that there was a $500 minimum on the prize pool. At the time, it was quite an overlay, as only 14 people had registered. So, I made it 15. I was nervous, but I didn’t chicken out.
My first two hands in the tournament were great. I picked up 600 chips to add to the 1500 I started with in only those two hands. I quickly realized that this tournament wouldn’t be all that different from playing full rings of O8. There were plenty of people calling down with over-pairs and raising with hands that smell worse than moldy cheese. There was even a guy confused as to why he had lost a hand, because he thought he could use three of his hole cards.
It took a while for people to start dropping. Limit tournaments will do that to you. We started out at 51 players, meaning that 10 places would be paid (though 9th and 10th would hardly be worthwhile). At one point early, I got up to first place, but that was short-lived. I was hovering around 12th or so when I got an important phone call. Yes, some things are more important than poker.
As the chatty guy on the other end of the phone babbled on, I sat out of the tournament getting blinded away. I kept peering in and seeing my chips disappearing across the table. When I finally convinced the chatty guy to send me some information in email instead, I had dropped to around 35th place out of about 45 or so.
I was a little disappointed. I decided that there were really only two options for playing so short stacked. Double up or go home. So I just raised and re-raised until I had doubled up twice, and I was back in the game. I was pretty lucky to get such good scooping hands right after I came back. It would not be the first time I got lucky.
The game progressed, we were down to twenty, and I was sent to a new table. This table is where I made my two biggest mistakes. I was in a hand with a short stack, and he was raising away. I didn’t really think about the fact that he was a short stack, and out of fear for the flush I didn’t have, I just called his last raise on the river. I won the hand with my three of a kind, which is awesome, but I left him with literally 6 chips because I was two dumb to realize that he was trying to go all in. I failed to knock out a short stack. As punishment to me, he managed to double, double, quintuple, and triple up back into contention. Woops!
My second mistake happened when I was bored after some endless folding. I decided to call pre-flop with nothing more than an A-2 feature. This isn’t always a terrible idea, but it definitely is when you end up heads up on the flop. The flop came all low cards (but no ace nor two), so I just started my calling station behavior. I had nothing resembling a high, and there was no one adding to the pot but the bettor and me. At showdown, he had a pair or two (it didn’t matter to me), and also had the A-2. Quartered. And not because of anything he did wrong. Woops!
Zac, the guy who took three-quarters of that pot, commented in the chat box that he hoped that was what I had. He quickly followed that with, “Calling with the low is dangerous.” I answered, laughing, that I knew that, and the whole time I was doing it I was calling myself a donkey. We both laughed about it, and chatted for the rest of the tournament. He was the kind of guy who liked to talk about peoples’ play, and I like watching it put other people on tilt.
After watching the slow death of the remaining short stacks (and winning a huge pot off of Zac on a 2-outer… but I think he forgave me), we were at the final table! My heart was racing, and there was a convenient break just after the first hand. I chatted a bit with the other people at the table; everyone seemed nice. Except Checkers. He developed an attitude problem with Zac because he talked about the hands.
Checkers asked Zac why he insisted on commenting on every hand that they both played in. He was pretty pissy about it. I almost commented, but didn’t because it was mean, that Zac commented on every hand he played on, and Checkers played every hand. Whatever. The rest of the table thought it was pretty funny.
I think my best play happened when there were 6 and 5 players remaining. I developed into a thief. I was in third, the player immediately to my left, CJ, was in second, and to his left were the two short stacks. CJ was kind of a wimp. He was obviously trying to fold into higher positions. He would occasionally call to see a flop, but would cave to the slightest pressure after that. I stole my way into second during that period.
When we were down to three, it was Checkers, me, and Zac (in that order). I made a play on Zac to take him down. I almost felt bad about it. But really, I like money.
The heads up play with Checkers went on for quite a while. We swapped the lead many times. But I made at least two significant donkey calls, and got unlucky at a couple inopportune times. I was a little upset that I couldn’t take down our nemesis Checkers. I didn’t win.
But I did come in second. For a payday of $224!
I doubled up my bankroll twice in as many days.
Sweet!
Very nice! Congrats.
Thank you!
It amazes me how many people play O8 without actually knowing the rules. I’d make fun of that, but then they might not come back. I love people who play O8 without knowing the rules!
I’m assuming you posted this comment before you posted your “I have a full house” post today :)
Yeah…
Yeah…
I’m…
I’m stupid.
I totally paid for it though… In actual dollars.
Funny thing… the guy who had the actual nuts there – he had been chatting with me a little bit previously. After that, he clammed up. I think he was trying to not tap on that proverbial glass.
I’m sure he loves people who don’t know the rules too… even if it’s only one hand out of a 3 hour session… *sigh*
I said it was embarrassing!