Last Chance...More Like NO Chance

So I attempted to play the last chance "dead money" table Friday night to win a seat in the WSOP main event. Well that plan didn't work out as I hoped it would. It was an all or none situation and I was all about the 'none' part of that. I only really played two hands and I played them TERRIBLE!!!!! They had 10 people and the structure was great with a lot of chips. We started off and everything was going as normal. I was card dead and people played terrible. There was some people from all over. A guy from Mass., a guy from Delaware, someone from Virginia, Texas. So needless to say I wasn't familiar with the other guys. They had one guy from Austin who was solid and for some reason people just wanted to give him a lot of chips for no apparent reason. Now aside from the fact that I played two hands really bad it just made me really flustered early on the way the first two guys busted. The guy from Austin..Rob, was forcing people out of their comfort zone and in return those people were losing big pots to him with bad calls....it didn't hurt that Rob was getting run over with the deck early on. There was one hand that just blew my mind.





The board was 10,J,7,8,J....I think that's what it was, I know Rob had Q,9 straight and the other guy made trips on the river. Rob moved all in on the turn in the dark (I think this is a bad play, but when you're playing against bad players I guess it doesn't matter). He moved in before the river card and he already had his straight, the board paired on the river and the guy went into the tank about if he should call or fold. How the hell do you make this call with out a full house blows my mind. Yes the guy has been playing a little open but if you've ever played the game then you realize who a good player is and who a bad one is, Rob was a good player. Well by going all in usually you would ONLY get called if you're beat, or if someone just doesn't want their chips anymore. He called after deliberating and showed his trips like he thought he was good. Another guy donated his chips but I don't remember the specifics on the hand other than it was bad. I think what really got me flustered was that these guys came from all over the place to play in this one table and completely wasted their time and money. I basically had chip envy and there was nothing I could do about it.





Well it didn't take long and I made an early departure. Leading up to this satellite I have been trying to figure out how exactly I need to play and been trying to go back and forth with limp and small ball or aggression and establishing action through me. Well in the midst of this dilemma I have played some really bad poker and basically developed a HUGH hole in my game that was never there. (at least not to this magnitude). Well my stupidity came when the blinds were 100/200/25. I was dealt As6s in the small blind and I thought it was folded to me in the blind with Rob (who eventually won) in the BB. I raised to $575 and Rob called and the cut off called, I didn't realize he had cards but it didn't really matter. I would have still raised anyway. Well the flop cam 9 high with two spades. I lead out for $1225 and get one caller. Now here is where I made my first mistake of the hand. The turn card paired the board and instead of moving all in on the turn for $4500, I bet $2200. Rob called and the river card was of course NOT a spade...it doubled paired the board with 99 and 44. I couldn't find the balls to fire out on the river and I checked and Rob set me in and I thought about it and eventually folded saving myself just over $2000 in chips. It woulda been a chopped pot. Now I know I played the hand horrible and I knew it as it was going on but I just couldn't pull the trigger on what I knew was the right play. I know a few things played into this.





One thing that was a factor was just the rust. I haven't been playing a lot, although I have put in two live sessions and two single table satellites in the past 19 days. A lot more playing than I did in the two months prior. The other thing that helped me make my decision wasn't exactly a good thing. Now with the blind levels being long and having a lot of chips I justified that lay down to myself by telling myself that although I should have put it all in, I can make this fold here and save some chips and even though I'm short stacked...I'm still a better player than almost everyone else. Well that logic got me short stacked and flustered and eventually lead to me beating myself up mentally and losing my chips without knowing what my cards were. It was actually kinda funny and I'm usually good for one of these a tournament.





Well after I lost the big pot b/c I played my flush draw so retarded I was dealt 33 and moved in and didn't get called. Then a little while I get dealt 9d,7d and it's limped around and I'm in the high jack. Well I limp and we take the flop 5 handed. Flop came King high two diamonds. It checked around to me and I shipped it with my flush draw. Well one guy folded and then I got a call and everyone else folded. The guy who called showed K,Q and I stated that I'm on a draw and turned over my 9d, 7 of HEARTS!....yep, misread my hand and thought I had a flush draw..I was just as shocked as everyone else when I saw my cards...hahaha, O well and I bet you can guess what happened. If I would have actually had a flush draw, I would have gotten there on the river. All I could do was laugh about it, o well...I was a dumb ass and fell right in line with the way the first 2 guys busted.





Saturday was the Final Table for the Dead Money satellite and my boy Derek a.k.a. Public (b/c he went to public school) was playing in it and I went down to Parc St. Charles to root him on and lend a helping hand if that was at all possible considering how well I had been playing recently. Well I hung out for a good while and watched him play very solid, he never did anything dumb and never really lost a hand while I was there. He's pretty "ABC poker" but as long as you don't get dumb or cold decked you can last a while with that style. Well eventually Davey and Ruttley showed up and we hung out for a while and watched some of the final table and then we headed over to Grandma Harrah's house. It was fun walking into Harrah's with those two, it had been a long time since we were at the casino together. It was pretty funny b/c when we walked in the door the lady asked me and Ruttley for our ID's and not Davey. I asked her if I looked under 21 and she said no but they have to ID up to 35 years old....haha, that's right, she thought Davey was 34 or 35. Ruttley and I called them out on it and we got a pretty good laugh at Davey's expense.





I sat down at a 1/2 game that had just opened and it happened to have two of the guys from out of town that traveled to NOLA to play in the satellite. Well the game was pretty tame, they had the two guys from out of town that were fairly weak, two guys from Texas on a bachelor party sporting brooks brother's shirts...nuff said. Two middle aged guys on business. A local older woman and another local. All in all it was definitely an easy table to maneuver and provided the chance to pick up some money. The only downside to the session was I knew I was not gonna be able to play for a very long time. I usually hate sitting down with a strict time limit but it was my birthday weekend and the girl and I were going eat some crawfish so I wasn't upset about the situation. I was able to with stand a few crappy hands and make a couple and pick up $100 in the hour and half that I played. Prior to going to Harrah's I was doing a lot of thinking about how I've been playing and right before going Harrah's I was speaking with Davey and he confirmed exactly what I was thinking and it definitely made me anxious to play. Well my intention was to talk about what Davey and I discussed and go into detail why we were thinking the same thing but this is getting long and I don't feel like writing anymore today considering it's my birthday. Guess I'll get to that later this week. I'm planning on playing sometime this week, till then.

Keep It Real Homies.