Tuesday, November 20, 2007

Ahead, but behind or was it behind, yet ahead?

I got knocked out of the MATH twice last night. The first time was against The Fat Guy who raised it 2x the blind from UTG. I re-raised right at 3x his bet from the button and he called. I had TT and put him on a smaller PP or big suited based on his call of my re-raise. The flop was 9 high with two diamonds. Scott made a moderate bet which I raised about 3/4 pot size. He re-raised AI and I was stuck calling T1800 into a T8000 pot. At that point, I have to put him on diamonds, a set, or a sneakily played KK-AA. That is not a good spot to be calling off the rest of your chips now is it? We were almost 2/3 of the way through the tournament though, it was turbo, and it was 4:1. I called and almost escaped with a win. The Q on the river paired his KQd and I was out for all intensive purposes. I got bumped to another table and went AI with less than the BB with Ax against Cardgrrl and was out with a whimper.

One of the benefits of playing a lot of tournament poker is that the odds are more apparently accurate. Sure, you might lose four or five coin flips in a row but there are four or five more right behind to even things out. Now that I am playing fewer tournaments per week, the odds are slower to even out. Of course I know that it is a problem of perception and not a conspiracy to get me but it stings when you are playing fewer tournaments and don't have the chance to play through a perceived streak. Overall, it's been a slow year for MTT wins but I can't complain as I am playing about 25% of what I played last year as I am playing more ring and less poker overall. I did almost hit the big win on True Poker's big Sunday night tournament with a single digit finish but that pleasure was tempered by getting into a reverse of The Fat Guy situation as outlined above with Otis in Miami Don's Big Game event. I am supposed to win one of those if math is to be believed. Hmmph, math.

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