Saturday, January 31, 2009

EMHD #3: Bubble Boy

I took one of the worst beats of my life to get bounced from EMHD #3 in 6th place (2 out of the money). I had recently doubled up through Julio with AQ over A-8 (I think that was the hand) to about $34,000 or $35,000 in chips. Blinds were $2k/$4k, and I'm in the SB with Fat Tony in the BB. It's folded around to me, and I pick up Ad/Kd and raise to $10k. Fat Tony (who had been playing super aggressive, especially for him) came over the top for all my chips. After rechecking my cards and assuring myself that I have to call (not necessarily pot committed, but I only have 5 BB's left, and I have a top 14 hand), I called. Fat Tony had As/5c.

The flop: Qs-Qc-2s. I'm still looking good, but I'm not loving my position.

The turn: Ks. Not a great card for me. While Tony loses the 5d and 5h as outs to win, he gains the 9 remaining spades as outs. I'm about 81% to win the pot, but I'm not feeling awesome.

The river: 3s. Fat Tony scoops the pot with the nut flush. I'm in shock.

Obviously, if Tony knows what I have, he maybe flat calls there at best, but given the stack sizes and the situation, it was a play that he thought he could make and maybe even be ahead if I'm playing KQ/KJ. I'm still a bit in shock that it went down that way, but it is what it is. I really think that given the situation and my stack size, plus how well I think I was playing, that if I had won that pot, I would have had a really strong chance to place very highly in the tournament. Maybe with the big stack, I really could have done some damage and won the thing. We'll never know...

2 comments:

  1. If I know what you have there, I definitely fold. Your bet seemed rather smallish, and certainly didn't commit you to the pot. I figured that (being a button raise) there was a decent chance you were either on a steal or raising with a hand that you weren't ready to commit yourself to. The other thing was that I'd have still had around 45000 chips left even if I lost the hand, so I figured it was worth a shot. Also, the players to my left had shown a lot of weakness, so losing a bunch of chips to a player to my right wasn't that big of a deal. When you turned over the ace king, I'd already lost the hand in my head and moved on.

    ReplyDelete
  2. As we discussed separately, we both played the hand well, given the circumstances. Beats happen, but it was yet another in a series of ridiculous beats that I'd gotten that week. I took it well, but it had to be posted, partly to help me get past it and keep on playing my best.

    ReplyDelete