WSPL Goes to Vegas episode 2/08

Mark and Rich are pulling further and further away from the pack, and I have to admit I'm getting pretty frustrated. I've been playing real poorly lately and I think I'm starting to get into my own head.

Things started off OK. Noah who is currently one spot above me in standings went out first and both Mark and Rich were fairly short stacked. I was getting terrible cards again, and not feeling any sort of confidence at all, but I figured as long as I played tight and smart I could at least make up some points. The only hands I played were out of the blinds, and I didn't play many of them past the flop.

Before I knew it I too was short stacked, and Rich kept rivering cards to stay alive. Somehow Archie accumulated more chips than the rest of the table, which worked out OK for me because he called just about anything, including my pre-flop all-in with TT.

That doubled me up and put me comfortably in second. I could have just played tight and waited for some spots to chip up, but no, I had to get aggressive and it didn't turn out well. I feel like whenever I try to push people out of a pot they hit something and raise me, and whenever I let it get to the river, they catch something to suck out on me.

I was back down to middle of the pack when I got AQs Mark was short stacked and limped. I popped it to 4x BB and he called that too. Our table normal preflop raise is probably 2.5-3. The flop is 5T8 and he pushes all in. Its about half my stack to call him. I put him on a missed hand, hoping that I too missed, and I call. He had KTs and it held up for him.

A few hands later I pushed with KT preflop and Mark called with AJ. Again his hand holds up and I'm out in third with a wasted opportunity to make up some ground. Only three games left. I need to win at least one and finish in the top 4 in all to even have a chance.

Here are the results for week 8

1. Archie
2. Aaron
3. Rich
4. Mark
5. Shane
6. Cookie
7. Me
8. Jason
9. Noah

And the current standings.  At this point I think Mark and Rich can start making travel arrangements.  

1. Mark (70 overall/60 dropping worst two)
2. Rich (67/58)
3. Noah(54/53)
4. Me (52/48)
5. Archie(50/48)
6. Aaron (47/42)
7. Jason (42/39)
8. Cookie (30/27)
9. Shane(24/23)

Originally posted at blog.pokerwords.com