As mentioned above, things just didn"t work out for me in last night"s APAT event. I had next to nothing to go to war with in the first hour and then in hour two things went base over apex. However, rather than going into a 24 hour tilt or go looking for a brick wall to bang my head against, I came away very happy indeed that there were signs that my play has moved up a step or two. During APAT season one, I played a number of tournaments but the only ranking points I picked-up were in a one-off Razz tournament. Frankly, I was out of my depth. Back then I would play Ace/King to Ace/Ten and pocket Aces to pocket Nines the same way regardless of table position, state of the tournament and who I was up against. I always slow played Aces,Kings and Queens and generally got scared if someone raised me.
I"m glad to report that things have changed and what pleased me about last night was a hand that, ultimately, crippled me, but indicated that my thinking is way ahead of where it was this time a year ago. If anyone present on the table at the time wants to correct me on the minutae of what I"m about to report, then feel free. However, I"ll make this as accurate as I can and if anything is slightly wrong, then all I can say is that my thought processes would not have been affected. The hand in question happened during the 75/150 level. The action folded round to me on the button and I raised to 450 with pocket tens. The small blind folded but the big blind reraised to 750. This to me said one of two things. Either he had a monster or he thought I was making a raise because of position only and he wanted to test my mettle. I didn"t think he was making this move with complete junk, but at this stage put him on a range of any pair,almost any ace and maybe king/queen. I decided to re reraise to 1050. I thought that this would be enough to send a message to him that I was serious about playing the hand but was not so big that I would be committed to the pot if he shoved. My opponent then called and the flop came Jack high with no flush or straight draws. The other guy checked and until quite recently I would almost always have put in a continuation bet of about two thirds of the pot. However, I have learnt the hard way about being check/raised off hands so, in view of my fears that he may potentially have checked with a larger pair with the intention of reraising all in, I also checked. The flop was the Queen of Hearts and as the Jack was also a heart, this opened up a few posibilities. My opponent checked a second time, I bet about 1350 into a 2100 chip pot and he went all in. Of course this gave me a tough decision to make; I had a pocket pair but there were two higher cards on the board. I also had to consider that there were flush and open-ended straight draw possibilities as well as overcards to the board and that he may have hit trip jacks or queens. I quickly discounted trip jacks as I didn"t think that he would 3 bet out of position preflop with pocket Jacks or check twice if it he had hit. I also quickly discouted pocket Queens as I thought that if he had hit trips on the turn, with the flush and straight draws out there he would have bet in turn rather than check for the second time. I also ruled out Ace/Ten or any Ace with a lower kicker as it just wouldn"t have made sense to 3 bet prelop with this kind of hand. I did consider Ace/Jack and Ace/Queen but thought that he would have made a bet of some sort if he had hit top pair on the flop and would have made a bet either on the flop or turn with Ace/Queen. This meant I was left with Aces, Kings, one of each or some kind of draw. I didn"t even consider the open-ended straight draw as I didn"t believe he"d have bet that way with Nine/Ten. Although I still thought pocket Aces and poket Kings were strong candidates, I thought the most likely holding was Ace/King. I even had a suspicion that he had Ace/King of hearts which would have given him a nut-flush draw as well as overcards. I called the bet as I was convinced I was ahead and my reading was proved correct as he revealed ah kc. Unfortunately, the river was a king which saved his neck but put me down to just over 2000 chips. I didn"t last long as soon after a shove with King/Ten was called by Jack/Four and a Four hit. Maybe next time.
Looking forward to the next few days, I"m unlikely to try again step up to the next buy-in level with on the cash tables. I"m at a gig on wednesday night, on the lager/nightclub trail friday night and will play the APAT Omaha tournament thursday night. I"ll want to get at least one Omaha tournament under my belt before the latter and will spend the rest of my time on the cash tables at the level to which I have become accustomed.
