I mentioned a little while ago that I had won a satellite some friends and I put on to enter into one of the Alberta poker championship tournaments. It was a $200+20 affair, and it was last night. The summary is ... well, I did well, but didn't make the money. There was ~133 people in the tournament with the top 15 places paying out. It didn't take me too long to get comfortable. The play was not amazingly good, and I picked up a lot of pots with my tight aggressive play. People respected my raises, and I continued to pick up a decent hand once in a while. I doubled up about halfway through with pocket kings. First guy min-raises and I come over the top for all my chips. He calls (I think he thought I had a smaller pair and didn't want a call) and flips over pocket Jacks.

I took out a guy with 92o in the BB when I caught two pair and put the short stack all in. A few rounds later, I took another short stack out with 73o when he went all in and gave me 5:1 pot odds to take him out (I made a flush on the river with my 3 of spades).

Then I ran into a very dry run of cards. At that point in the tournament I had an above average stack, though not a huge amount above average. Probably around 24,000-25,000. Now I know that I played a little too tight, but its a little hard to make a big raise with Ace-rag from early position (I never got an ace in late position) ... and that was about as good as the hands were. I saw 75o several times, and worse hands than that ... and all the while the blinds and antes rose at a phenomenal rate. Over those rounds, my chip stack dropped to 16,500, and I just couldn't find a hand to play. Then comes the hand that I kinda wish I had played differently.

I have 16,500 in chips. Blinds are 700/1500, with 200 antes. UTG raises to 3000, and then UTG+1 re-raises to 8000. I'm in the big blind and look down at TT. What do I do? I'm scared of the raise-reraise thing. The player UTG could well have a monster with his minraise. A re-raiser has got to have something, and its likely AK or AQ at a minimum (if not JJ, QQ, KK or AA). Both players have similar chip stacks to me. I think one of them outchips me by a couple thousand and the other has a couple thousand less than me. If I call, I'm pot committing myself ... and the initial raiser still can act after me. I decided to fold, but I really wasn't too sure if I should have called or not.

Turns out I should have. UTG had AJo, and UTG+1 had AKs. Board doesn't pair anybody and my tens would've stood up and I would've almost tripled up. *sigh*.

Oh well, now I'm hoping that the cards turn out better for me. They don't. A couple rounds later, I pick up KTs (the best hand I'd seen with no action in front of me). Guy to my right folds but didn't seem happy to be folding, and I push. A guy on the other end of the table yells "NICE", and flips over AA. What can I do? No bad beat for him, and I'm knocked out in 26th-ish place. Top 15 get paid. *double sigh*.

It was fun though. Until I had that bad string of cards I really felt I had an edge on a lot of the players. I felt comfortable, and seemed to have this respect from a lot of players that I'm not certain is entirely deserved. But then again, I wasn't in a lot of pots. Just enough to pick up some blinds and antes and stay alive. I can't wait until the next chance I get in one of these big tournaments. I think I've got a good shot at the money on each try :)

Heraldk