Another Near Miss

Once again, I played great. Once again, my starting table was loaded with terrible players. Once again, I built up an above average stack of chips. And once again, with the money in sight, I gambled in a big pot and came up empty.

By the time the four dead money players at my first table were eliminated, the table consisted of an intimidating bigstacked pro, online rival "LitleBastrd" with a wildly fluctuating but usually big stack, the fearsome Hoyt Corkins, the fantastic Chad Brown, a few inconsequential dudes, and me with a short stack. I hung in there, caught a few breaks, and doubled up on the last hand before the table broke to get to around 12k. I also learned a few things from Brown, who was personable, professional, and free of advertising for online poker sites.

My next table was filled with unknown players and big stacks of chips. Some of these players really knew what they were doing and some had no idea. I never found a hand at this table but kept my stack from dropping too much by making a few plays. Finally with 170 players left paying 100 a huge stack raised in midearly position and I decided to just call with AK of diamonds because a reraise would leave me in an awkward spot chipwise. The big blind called as well and we saw an 882 flop with one diamond. The BB checked and the raiser made a moderate bet which I decided to call in position, hoping that he would shut down on the turn or I would make a deceptive pair. The big blind folded and and a low diamond rolled off the deck. To my disappointment the raiser now moved all in and I reluctantly called after crunching some numbers. He had jacks which was basically what I put him on. None of my 15 outs materialized on the river and I was out. Like the 1.5k NL last week this was a spot where I read my opponent correctly and decided to gamble with a marginal hand in an effort to get a hold of a bunch of chips rather than fight on towards the money with a meager stack.

I can't wait for the main event as I saw tons of players just dying to give away all their chips today and the structure will be good enough that I can get in there and really take advantage of mistakes.

I may fire up a long-awaited online session on the 2k tables right now.