My hopes were high as my friend Matt and I descended upon Mohegan Sun yesterday for their 5pm $120 super-stack No-Limit Hold 'Em tourney. Starting stack was 20K with 20 minute blinds. A much better structure than what I'm used to playing which favors the patient more conservative players. My mindset going in was to play small-ball in the early levels, then open up my game as the blinds increased. Deep into level 3 (75/150), I picked up Q-Q two seats to the right of the button. There were two limpers in front of me so I decided to raise it to 600. The button called as did one of the two limpers. The 3 of us saw a flop of 2-3-4 rainbow. The limper checked and I bet 1200 only to be raised by the button to 6025. The limper folded and it was decision time for me. Calling his bet was out of the question. I was out of position and I didn't want to get bet off the hand on the turn. I took a few moments to try and figure out what he had. K-K and A-A seemed unlikely. He probably would have re-raised pre-flop with those two hands. A set of 2's 3's or 4's? Maybe, but why raise on the flop? He probably would have smooth called my 1200 bet to entice me to bet more on the turn or river (at least that's what I would do). A-5 or 6-5? Again, why raise with the straight on the flop? You smooth call there to try to get more moola in the middle. There were no flush possibilities, so my final conclusion was a pair of 5's or 6's or A-K or A-Q. His raise seemed fishy to me like he wanted me off the hand cause he didn't know where he stood. I decided to raise all-in. My opponent snap-called with (if you guessed it you get a gold star!) 6-6! Ha! I had him right where I wanted him! Until the 5 hit the turn and I was out in 49th place out of 50. Felted again! Ugh! For the record, Matt finished 12th making another one of his patented deep runs. 8 were paid. His bust-out hand came when he moved all-in with K-J from the SB only to be called by the BB holding K-Q. (His sting wore off quickly however when, on our way out, he bet a $100 chip on black in roulette and it came up 15 black).
This sparked a debate between the two of us at lunch this afternoon. If you're gonna bust out of a tournament, would you rather be ahead and get sucked out on? Or would you rather be behind the whole way? Basically, which one of us should be more frustrated? Now, for those of you who don't know me, I'm a very positive person, and for those of you that do know me, stop laughing. :) In all seriousness, the first 12-24 hours of a bust-out, I'm a terribly woeful and negative person, but after the natural frustration wears off and I've had time to honestly assess my play, reality sets back in. This is my thinking on it. I would MUCH rather be ahead and take a bad beat than be behind from the beginning. Bad beats hurt a lot more in the short-term. No doubt. But being behind from the start means I made a play that I shouldn't have, or wouldn't have had I known my opponent's hand. If someone had told me before I went all-in that my opponent had 6-6 to my Q-Q, I STILL would have gone all-in! Right play wrong result is better than wrong play. I think the reason my frustration level is so high when I go broke, is that I'm (almost) always AHEAD when it happens! At least at the end of the day I can feel comfortable blaming the "Poker Gods" for my loss, rather than myself. And that will always keep me coming back for more.
