Wednesday, October 1, 2008

Pub Tourney Tales Continued

Six weeks ago, or thereabouts: “bastin, you don’t know as much abut poker as you think you do.” That was Skunk’s pronouncement as I stepped out of line and asked him why he would go all-in with A8 when the blinds were still $25/$50. He lost the hand to A5.

With a field of 24 players, I made it to the final table last night with a halfway decent stack, pocket queens having held up twice. It wasn’t huge, but I was better off than several of the eight players left. I was doing a lot of folding, folding winning hands as a matter of fact, and blinding off. I could hear the “loosen up” monkey chattering away in my ear. That monkey has notoriously bad timing, so I did my best to ignore it, and blinded off some more.

Blinds were 2k/4k and I had 2.5 M in the small blind with one limper UTG. All in with AJo. The peanut gallery is speculating. The BB reluctantly folds and the UTG tanks. The peanut gallery says “Fold Doug. You know you’re going to fold, so hurry up.” The guy is getting halfway decent odds to call with any two, which is exactly what he plays most of the time. He calls with 10 7o and the flop comes with….a 7. Ah, sweet river J! I double up.

All-in with A5h from UTG and collect 1.5 BB. Again in the SB, just me and the BB. I take her out of her short-stack misery. I have some chips to do battle. Time to turn up the heat a bit. KQc, raise it up 2 X BB, Skunk goes all-in and I call. He has K 10, one of his favorite hands. Sweet Queen. (There is a side story about Queens: Several of the Crackers playing were bad-mouthing Gays earlier in the evening. I remarked that I was winning with Queens as vindication for my gay friends.) Skunk puts forward a limp fist-bump and slinks away. I love knocking him out.

I’m heads-up with a kid I have been heads up with twice before in the last two months. I have about 3 times as many chips as him. After a little back and forth, I’m on the button with 7s and raise it up. He goes all in and I call. He has A6o and my hand holds. I’m happy. My third win in as many months. Not bad, considering I had only one win before that in two years.

Peanut gallery: “bastin was overdue.” No, bastin is finally learning how to play tourneys.

3 comments:

Cardgrrl said...

Way to rock the house, bro!

By the way, you fool no one with your "learning to play tourneys" line. You've kicked plenty of butt in tournaments in the past.

You may, however, be learning to adjust to the joys of pub poker tournaments. You'll then have to UNadjust when you start playing deepstacks for mobneys in casinos.

Such is the poker life.

Memphis MOJO said...

Nice job!

Forrest Gump said...

Well played sir!