A couple of my regular recent faults came back to haunt me last night and destroy what little chance I had of some serious cash. I played in Full Tilt"s MSOP event 2 which was a NL hold em tourney with a $15 entry and attracted about 5500 players. My first table seemed pretty passive and a lot weaker than I"d expect for the money on offer, so despite being card dead fro the first hour, I managed to build my initial stack of 3000 chips to just over 5500 by the first break with some raising,reraising, check-raising and any every other trick I have in my repertoire. I moved tables in the 2nd hour and was amongst some much bigger stacks who were playing a lot more aggressively. I decided on a change of tack and thought it better so play a much tighter game. Again, I was completely card dead for most of the 2nd period but about 5 minutes before the next break i doubled up. I had A 9 offsuit on the button with the action folding round to me with the exception of one mid table limper. I made a standard raise and was called by the limper. The board came J 7 2 rainbow, the other guy checked, so I bet 2/3 of the pot with the intention of trying to steal the chips but leaving enough behind to allow me to fold if he came over the top. Again he called my raise. The turn was a 9 meaning I had 2nd pair top kicker and the betting was as before i.e he checked, I bet, he called. The river was a 3 and meant that there were no flush draws out there, but there was a potential straight, but I thought it highly unlikely he would have bet 8 10 due to his pattern of betting.
This time, he checked, I bet and he reraised me all in. I had a tricky decision to make, as I had to consider that he had been slowplaying an overpair to the board and if I got my read wrong, I was out. I decided to call as I felt he was probably playing overcards and trying to bully me. Thankfully I was right and he turned over A Q, doubling me up. For the first half of the third hour I stumbled along with around 10000 chips then 2 hands happened within 5 minutes which saw me depart. I had A
7 suited 2 before the button when everyone folded to me and I decided to make a standard raise. The 2 players to my left folded, the small blind went all in and the big blind folded. I called the shove as I thought he could have been making the move with a wide range of hands some of which I would have been a favourite against. He turned over 55 which held up leaving me with about 5000 chips. Shortly after I had A Q in mid position, shoved, got called and failed to catch a card meaning I lost to my opponents 44 and was out of the tournament.
As I mentioned further up this page, this tournament illustrates 2 things which have haunted me on a regular basis recently. Firstly the number of times I"ve been eliminated in the 3rd hour of deepstack tournaments. In the APAT online events, if I"d managed to convert all my penultimate table finishes into final table, point-scoring ones, I"d be leading the national rankings (somehow I"m still not too far off the pace). If I make a continuation bet and get reraised, I call way too often and put my tournament life in peril. Ho hum, I"m sure I"ll learn one day
