Interesting Tournament

So I'm back from the $60 tourney, and although I didn't place, I thought I played really well, and just couldn't win an all in to save my life at the end of the tourney. Here is a detailed explanation of the tourney from start to finish:

I only think I mis played 1 hand which I will get to later. My starting table really sucked with a really good player on my direct left (Skippy), and also another really good player 2 to his left, Bill Sparks (check out his blog at http://billsparkspoker.blogspot.com/).

So anyway the first major hand I played was 10d7d, on the button. There where 3 limpers, I called, and so did the blinds. The flop came out KJ5 with one diamond. It checked around. The turn was the Qd making me open ended, with a flush draw. The UTG limper bet out half the pot, and I called. The river was the Jd making my flush but pairing the board. He bet out 600. At this point I was 50/50 to weather he had a boat or just trip J's. My problem with folding here is that he is a bad player and I could easily have him. I called, and even before I did, I said boat is good. He flipped over KK, nh sir.

So at this point I'm all ready down to 500. I stole blinds a couple of times, tried floating a guy on the flop, didn't work out, so I stayed at about 500. I stole blinds a couple more times. Then I pushed my button when folded to me wtih 10d5d for 690 when the blinds were 70/140. BB called with 89 and I won.

Very next hand I push with 88, get called by Bill Sparks AQ, and I double up again. I swear to god the only time I win a race is against a friend or a player I really respect ( Bill qualifies for both). So now I'm back in good shape with like 3200.

About 10 hands later someone raises from UTG, and I just flat call with KK. I don't do this a lot but in certain situations I think it it the right move. Here I know he has a really good hand (especially because he is a tight player), and I am probably going to play the hand heads up in position, with a very good chance of stacking this player. To my surprise Bill Sparks pushed all in from the BB. The UTG player thought for a while and folded. Now there is no question that Bill has a very very good hand here. I was pretty sure that I could narrow it down to AA or AK. The reason for this is that I actually had a discussion with Bill about how to play QQ in these spots, and he even has a blog entry about it. He had a big stack behind, and when a tight player raising UTG and UTG+1 calls, there is a good chance that one of them could have a very strong hand, and he would be worried about his QQ being best. UTG and me both have a good stack that would cripple him. So I think Bill would have came over the top, but also gave himself a chance to fold if one of the 2 players re raised again. So basically from knowing Bill and his thought process in this situation, I could eliminate QQ-1010, and narrow it down to AA or AK. I basically made it very clear that I had a huge hand, and didn't think I could lay it down. Bill didn't seem completely confident, and although I wasn't as confident as I normally am with KK, I made the call. Thankfully he had AK, I held and was in really good shape to do well in the tourney. Bill told me after the hand that he didn't think I would flat call with KK, which is another reason of why I do it once in a while. It is very difficult to put me on KK in this spot, and also it makes my hands all the more hard to read in the future.

We merged tables getting down to 20 players, and this is when it all turned to shit. I had 6 all in hands and lost every one of them. I lost AK to A4, K10 to A9, 44 to KQ, Q8 to A6, KJ to A4, and 33 to AJ. On basically every hand except the Q8 (which was the one hand I think I played bad), I basically had no choice but had to get it all in. Every time I was the initial raiser, got re raised all in, and had the right odds to call with my hand. I just got unlucky and didn't win any of them, busting out in around 12th place. The Q8 hand what I did wrong was the blinds were at 150/300 and I raise to 700 leaving my self about 1700. I made this raise to hopefully look like I wanted action, which I had never done prior to this point with a good hand. The bb pushed with his A6, and I ended up calling off my stack. I don't think the call was really that bad as it was only 1200 more for me to call, but if I was going to call anyway, I should have just pushed it all in and put all the pressure on the bb, instead of making him think that he had a chance for me to fold. It probably would have turned out the same way, but still, not the best play in the world by me.

So anyway I was really satisfied with the way I played the touney today, aside from the one mis-played hand with Q7, and I am looking forward to more live tourney's. On a side note after I crippeled Bill down to just 500 chips, he make an incredible comeback and he had over 9k in chips by the time I left. He is in really good shape to do well in the tourney, and lets hope he takes it down. Anyway I'm off to bed, but I will be back tomorrow.........