All Good Things Must Come to an End

Well folks, I'm sorry to say that we have all been bamboozled, hoodwinked, and taken for a ride. This poker tournament, and maybe even this blog, needed to come with a disclaimer, lest we all get our hopes up - Warning: Donkey Poker Players Will Self-Destruct in Round 5...

The round started off innocuously enough - I had A 5 suited early, raised, and everyone folded - free money, awesome. It should be noted that blinds were $200/$400, but antes had moved to $50 so it was now costing $1050 every time around the table and we started with that amount before any action.

Anyway, my fifth round good fortunes continued with my first big blind - I got a walk. A walk with 7 - 2 off-suit no less. For anyone who doesn’t know, a walk is when everyone folds and the big blind gets all the chips. I got $1,050 in chips for getting dealt the worst possible hand in poker and being the last to act. I love round 5.

A good 40 - 50 minutes go by and nothing... I'm folding every hand. But it's ok, I have $31,000 in chips and I can just ride those until day two if round 5 doesn't have any mojo for me. Right?

Kings.

I like Kings. Might even love Kings. Can’t argue with Kings. So I raise to $1,100 and get two callers... then I get a flop with A J 5 and I'm first to act. Really? An ace? With two calls? No ace and I dump on them and pick up $4,000... or maybe slow play for more. The things I could have done without an ace. But that doesn’t matter now, there’s an ace. Knowing these guys as loose players, I check. They bet with each other, I fold, and they go on to have a monster pot.

If I could pinpoint an exact moment when everything went wrong, I think it started with the kings. It wasn’t as much a monetary setback as one to my already fragile psyche, I should have won those kings.

Anyway, I go on to keep folding more and more hands, each time getting more and more frustrated… I haven’t won a pot in forever.

I pick up pocket 6's in the big blind and call a raise to $800. How can I not? There's $1,050 in the pot and he just bet $800 - that's $1,850 I can win if I call $400 more. Alas, it was another $800 wasted - all over-cards and I had to fold to a bet.

An hour and fifteen minutes after my walk, I haven't taken in another chip - but I'm losing $1,050 every time around the table. I'm now down well under $30K and there doesn’t seem to be a floor I can hit in the last 45 minutes of the day.

J10 suited, I’m two off the button... something I would normally fold, but raise - I'm now pressing, trying to make something happen. Invincible? Lucky? Powerful? No more... desperate. Re-raise, I fold.

Another thousand gone.

Big blind again, K2 suited. A raise to $800 and a call... now I can win $2,650 for calling $400 more - how can I not? I have to. Folded to a bet after the flop... maybe it had a diamond, maybe it didn't, does it matter?

Another thousand gone.

10-3 and I'm in the small blind. With $1050 in the pot, surely it's worth $200 to limp and see if I can get a flop, right? I did! Flop for $200! We actually checked down to the river and I got to see five cards for $200, what a deal. I still didn't win, he had ace high. I couldn’t beat ace high.

Now I’m in an absolute free fall - I'm playing whatever I can for whatever seems like good odds. I'm under $25K and while that should be enough for Wednesday, I'm on tilt. It's awful... I know I’m playing like a donkey, but it's like I'm watching a bad movie and I just can't stop myself.

Under the gun, pocket fours… RAISE! No... no.. what did you just do?! But then the next six people fold and I now have position - it's just the blinds to act… I'm going to get out of this one!

Call, call. Both blinds? Really? A, K, 7. Check, check to me. Hmmmm... both of these guys called my raise, which means out of the two of them, surely one of them has either an ace or a king... I bet $2,000!!! Small stack calls, big blind folds, and the small stack shoves after a turn that did nothing for me and I fold.

Another three thousand gone.

I'm now plummeting towards $20,000... why?! Why would I do this? What's wrong with me?!

But it's ok, at $20,000, I have 40 big blinds for the next round Wednesday morning. I'm still over $20K and I can just grind out the last 28 minutes and make day two with 35 - 40 big blinds and a fresh start.

Small blind, pocket threes. Awesome. I spend another $900 in chips to see three over-cards and no set for me on the flop... shocking.

Another thousand.

Then it happened. A - Q. There it is. Hello! Why had I wasted so many chips pressing and trying to make things happen when I could have just waited for a good hand that I knew would eventually come? I call a $1,200 raise in the small blind and the big blind raises to $3,850.

Whoa, where did that come from?! I can’t call that… A Q isn’t that good. I don’t know what he has, but I know he’s a good player, is conservative, and he has something. I have to fold my A Q.

So I raise to $5,200.

What? What did I just do?! I could have just thrown the hand away and stuck at $19K, now I just threw in another $4,000 chips! Why would I do that? He obviously has something better than me!

What? I’m sorry, what’s that? I didn’t raise enough? The minimum raise, which I have announced I’m making, is actually $6,500? Excellent… I’ll add another $1,300 chips to my bad bluff because my math sucks after midnight. Great.

Poker Tip: When attempting to bluff a very good poker player that you know has a better hand than you, it’s helpful if you don’t make a raise that’s prohibited by rule for being too small, then look uncomfortable and stammer after the dealer admonishes you in front of the other poker players for your faux pas, and finally make the minimum possible raise.

He moved all-in, I folded.

Another six thousand.

Awesome… now I’m down under $15K and I’m not even sure I’ll make it through the last 20 minutes. Actually, I’m not sure I want to – what’s the point of coming back with no chips Wednesday when I could play in a multi-day deep stack at the Venetian tomorrow?

If, in the last 20 minutes I get a chance to push $14K, I’m doing it… that’s 28 big blinds on Wednesday and it’ll be closer to 20 by the time the blinds are done with me if I don’t win a hand. It’s time to start looking for a hand to shove…

16 minutes to go, I’m one off the button, and I get A 8 of clubs when someone bets $1,050. I call and a total of four players get into a $5K pot. Maybe I should have pushed pre-flop, I don’t know… my hope was to spend one of my last thousand hitting a nut flush flop and then slow play as long as I could for as much as I could. This is now my poker strategy – hit the nut flush with 15 minutes left.

And then it happened.

K, Q, 4… all spades. My nut flush. It happened, it really happened! It did, right? Wrong black. I had clubs and the flop was spades – this was nothing more than the poker gods kicking me in the groin and laughing.

I swear I thought I hit it for a second though… man… can you imagine?

Another thousand.

And then, with $13K and ten minutes on the clock, they announced we were playing four more hands. Four more hands and I come back on Wednesday. At this very second, I could get up, walk out of the room, order a beer to celebrate, drink it for ten minutes, come back, bag my chips, and say I made day two. It’s that easy and guaranteed – just give up my $600 in antes and call it a night, don’t play another hand.

So… queens. A pair of ladies. Of course.

I raise, the really good kid to my left re-raises. Sidebar: This is the kid from Brazil who flopped a straight against my three tens in the opening round and raised my AQ when I made my boneheaded attempt at a bluff raise earlier in the round (He said he had Kings).

Nemesis.

Anyway, he re-raises to $2,600 (I made it $1,200), and with queens, about $12,000 left in chips, and 4 hands left in the evening, I pushed all in.

Insta-call. Instantaneous. I said all-in and by the time ‘in’ left my mouth he had already called. He may have actually called so quickly that he defied laws of physics and called my all-in before I even went all-in.  

He had aces, I had queens. Typical. And he even had one of my queens covered with the diamond – so he was 81.3% to win instead of 80.7% like if I had two flush draws.

Flop comes 5, 5, 6 – with the 5 and 6 of spades. I have a queen of spades he doesn’t have covered so I see my glimmer of hope and shout out – c’mon runner runner spades! I need one of the two remaining queens or two spades in a row… or I’m going home.

7 of spades on the turn.

Things just got slightly more interesting – I’ve gone from a 12% chance to win to a 22% chance. I need one more spade on the river. So you’re saying there’s a chance?! I could suck out!!!

And I did. Three of spades on the river gave me a flush and doubled me up to over $26K.

I folded the next three hands and am sitting at $25,700 heading into Wednesday.

Better lucky than good, eh?

And so, day one, which turned out pretty good, comes to an end.