Weekend Tournament Frustrations

I almost forgot how frustrating tournament poker can be.

I ended up placing in the money in two out of three tournaments that I entered on Saturday, but I was still disappointed with how each one turned out.

I started off with a $4+$0.40 SNG at FullTilt. The winner qualifies for a $24+$2 satellite into a $200+$16 tournament, with the top finishers of that going to the WSOP main event. I don’t quite like the odds with the $24+$2 enough to put money down on that, but I figured, I’d try my luck at the $4 to see if I could win my way in.

I was able to take a few pots big pots early in this one, including one where I got a big blind special, flopping two pair with my 84o. I took a big chunk out of another guy’s stack when he picked up a pair of aces on the turn. He pretty much went on tilt after that. He made huge pre-flop raises and went all in on just about any flop he saw. That approach was working out well from him as he was second in chips. I knew he’d run into someone with a decent hand sooner or later, and that he wouldn’t be long for this game.

Sure enough, a few hands later, I look at my cards and see two aces staring back. I make a standard raise, and Mr. Tilt makes a huge reraise. Every one bails, and I go all in. He calls with 84s. Two more of his suit came on the board just to make me nervous, but I knocked him out hand took a huge chip lead.

I pretty much sat back and let everyone else battle for most of the rest of the tournament. I took out some key flops, but didn’t go out of my way to enter any questionable pots. By the time we were down to two, I still had my chip lead, although not by much.

I then proceeded to play my typical horrible heads up game, and managed to come in second. As it turned out second place paid $10, so it wasn’t a complete loss. At least I doubled my money.

As that SNG was going on, I enrolled in a $5 multi table tourney, also at Full Tilt. There were only 50 players, so I didn’t think it would be that bad. Unfortunately, I realized that it was a limit tournament after it started. I seem to do pretty well in limit tournaments, but they take way too long to finish. Three hours later I found myself in the chip lead at the final table, with the top 6 paying.

I took a pretty bad beat to get knocked back down to the middle of the pack. A few missed flops followed by a horrible decision to push with wired fives, and I find myself eliminated in 5th place. This was especially disappointing. I spent three hours playing pretty good poker only to screw it up in the end. I had also decided that if I won, I would use the $100 to enter the “Win a piece of Erick Lindgren tournament.” I had wanted to try to play a satellite to get into that one, but there weren’t any on Saturday so this became a make your own satellite event for me.

Later on, still on Full Tilt, I entered a $10 tournament with about 200 other people. Things didn’t go very well at all for me in this one. The very first hand I had AJ on the button, and everyone folded except the cutoff who tried to limp in. I raised to 3x BB and both blinds folded. The cutoff called, then check called my half pot sized bets on a raggedy flop and turn. The river was an eight which put three to straight, and not much else on the board. He lead out with a pot sized bet, and I had fold. After that I tightened up and couldn’t do much else. I won a family pot with TJ in late position when everyone limped. The flop was ten high and it was checked around to me. I took it down there and had a littler room to breathe again.

A few more missed flops and I was starting to feel pressured again. I had AQs in late position and raised it up. I had two callers. The both checked on a flop of T9T, and I went all in, trying to take it there. One of them called and turned over 9T for a flopped full house, and I was out in 130th or something.

So yeah, even though I finished in the money in two out three, I was still incredibly frustrated by my performance. I felt like I should have had at least two wins. Maybe next weekend will work out better. Time to check on the second blogger WSOP qualifier.