Wasting a Vacation Day

I played (if you want to call it that) in the senior's tournament at the Fall Poker Round-Up in Pendleton on Tuesday. I used a vacation day for this and truly wish I hadn't wasted my time. I played a grand total of four hands. I won with A-K (did not see a flop after my raise) and won with pocket 3s (flopped a set; I bet on the turn and everyone folded).

I had KK in the big blind with SIX pre-flop limpers so I raised to 300 with blinds being 25-50. I thought this was a pretty good raise and I was right because I got everybody out except one guy who reraised to 1125. I just shoved it all in. The guy had the only hand I didn't want to see (AA) and was just waiting around for me to do exactly what I did. It wouldn't have made any difference if the raise was before or after the flop because with a queen high flop, all the money was getting in anyway. Naturally, I lost and was down to 950 in chips. This was only because I won the two previously mentioned hands.

My last fiasco (and totally my fault) was calling in the small blind with Q8 offsuit (nobody raised). The flop was 2-2-3. Nobody bet. The turn was an 8 so I had two pair with a queen kicker. I went all in again. The same guy that had limped/trapped me with AA now called me with 10-10, which he also didn't bother to raise with before the flop. If he had raised I never would have called with Q8. I was gone. I didn't even have any luck with my $20 slot machine investment. Phooey!!

The only good thing about my vacation time was that I took a total of two days off and got back on the horse to take 4th place in the Wednesday morning tournament at the Moose for a small win. It made me feel better though!

Good and Bad

I played in the Tournament of Champions on Sunday at the Cable Bridge. I was going along smoothly with 6100 in chips after the first break and blinds of 200-400. My first mistake was to raise to 1400 in early/middle position with AJ offsuit, which I could have easily folded or limped in with. A guy on the button went all in for a total of 3400. I thought he might be making a "button raise" because he was pretty active on the button. My second mistake was calling him. He had pocket kings and they held up. Just like that, I was down to 2700 in chips and after the blinds I only had 2100.

My next (and fatal) mistake was not having enough patience to wait for a better hand that A3 offsuit to go all-in with about 2 hands later. I got called by - you guessed it - pocket kings. They held up again and I was toast. I was so irritated with myself that I went home and ate a big bowl of ice cream with tons of chocolate sauce to make myself feel better.

However, it is hard to keep me down for very long and I decided to pick myself up, dust myself off and get back on the horse right away. I went back and played the little $15 tournament at 7:00 and I won it! I must pat myself on the back for this because it was seriously tough to win this tournament. At one point, with the blinds at 3,000-6,000 I was all-in with KQ hearts and it held up. There were still 6 players left at that point and I had no chips to speak of. When there were 3 players left I had only 21,000 chips and the other 2 guys had the other 83,000 chips. Yours truly took them down - yippee!!

I feel much better now - and I get to play in another Tournament of Champions in December! :)