MATH recap

The Battle of the Blogger Tournaments enter the final home stretch with I think 10 tournaments (maybe 9 after MATH) left and yours truly right in the middle (6th) of a grueling battle for the top 3 (measly 83 pts separate the 3rd place spot, currently occupied by NewinNov and the 7th place spot, occupied by jeciimd). After a weekend of decent showings in the MTTs I played in (which I know is very few compared to other MTT players), I was fairly confident that I was gonna do well. Well... I did... sort of. Early on, I was able to chip up thanks to a good mix of good cards, decent reads and decent aggression. Having good hands when it went to showdown helped me steal some pots in position. And by doing so, I was able to build a big stack and I was in the top 3 for a long time as I look to really take over this tournament. Well, I started losing focus because what I also wanted, along with winning was also knocking out the others who are in the top 7 points to ensure that I could make up some ground... and because of that, this was the first hand where I knew it was going to be a bad move and yet, I donk-raised...

There were 6 of us on the table with NewinNov as the shortstack and I really wanted to knock him out. He starts with T2,870 in chips and the blinds are 150/300 ante 25 (so the pot starts with 600) and he minraises from the CO. That screamed a big hand... my gut instinct was he has a big hand. I am in the SB, look down to see 44. I tell myself he's got a big hand. And next thing I know, I'm shoving my 19K+ stack into the middle, now hoping for a race... well, it was a race that I was losing badly as he showed JJ... Nothing like doubling up the one guy that I wanted to bust mainly on a donkish move by me.

Well, I didn't let that affect me and just kept up my aggressive ways and I started targeting the other big stack at the table... wwonka69, thinking that he wouldn't want to go up against the other big stack at the table without a good hand. So, every time he posted his big blind, I put in a raise from the CO. I think I went 3 or 4 orbits in a row where I did that... and then this came up...

FullTiltPoker Game #2643750853: Mondays at the Hoy (19464466), Table 1 - 200/400 Ante 50 - No Limit Hold'em - 0:00:48 ET - 2007/06/12
Seat 3: RecessRampage (19,362)
Seat 4: bayne_s (9,260)
Seat 6: wwonka69 (10,720)
Seat 7: leftylu (14,526)
Seat 8: NewinNov (4,340)
RecessRampage antes 50
bayne_s antes 50
wwonka69 antes 50
leftylu antes 50
NewinNov antes 50
leftylu posts the small blind of 200
NewinNov posts the big blind of 400
The button is in seat #6
*** HOLE CARDS ***
Dealt to RecessRampage [Ah Qc]
RecessRampage raises to 1,650
bayne_s folds
wwonka69 raises to 5,800
leftylu folds
NewinNov folds
RecessRampage has 15 seconds left to act
RecessRampage raises to 19,312, and is all in
wwonka69 calls 4,870, and is all in
RecessRampage shows [Ah Qc]
wwonka69 shows [6d 6h]
Uncalled bet of 8,642 returned to RecessRampage
*** FLOP *** [Kd 8h Ts]
*** TURN *** [Kd 8h Ts] [Th]
*** RIVER *** [Kd 8h Ts Th] [2s]
RecessRampage shows a pair of Tens
wwonka69 shows two pair, Tens and Sixes
wwonka69 wins the pot (22,190) with two pair, Tens and Sixes

Man, why couldn't the river be K, T, or 8, or A, or Q.... so many outs... And honestly speaking, when I reraised all in, I thought this was a case where he finally felt like he had enough so I thought he would reraise me with a hand like AJ, AT (of course, with also hands like AA, KK, AK, QQ, JJ, TT - all of which beats me).... Now that I look at this, it almost seems lucky that I was just a dog on a coin flip. This was clearly the turning point. If I take that pot, since we went to the final table during this hand, it would have been down to 8 players and with 30k+, I would have been a dominating stack. Instead, I was down to approx 9k and then I went card dead... and my stack was a little too short to make any moves aside from pushing all in... eventually, I did, actually right after I made sure NewinNov busted and I end what could've and should've been a monster run at the MATH in 8th place... that was a shitty finish to an otherwise well played tournament by me. Couple of questionable moves by me jeopardized my stack and eventually, I forced myself into a situation where I had to push with J9o... That sucked. Well, at least there is the Mookie tomorrow.