Deck/face conflict
Man, it’s been a while since I got to play big stack poker. Even with recent tournament wins, I’ve generally been scrapping away with an average stack throughout the tourney. Today I got to play with some serious chips in front of me for the first time in a while… I screwed it up in the end, of course, but it was fun while it lasted.
I’d like to say I built my stack with skillful play, but in fact it was a combination of dumb luck and a rush of big hands… hey, I deserved it. Things started looking up when I decided to run a button steal with my shortstack and A2o, and got reraised all-in by the big blind. I clicked call, scowled at the pocket eights, flopped the ace, and we were off. Then came two big pots out of position against the chipleader at the table; he called me down to the river with an unimproved ATo on both hands; the first time I had AKs, the second time sixes, both times I made my hand on the river and pushed, both times he called. Maybe he was setting me up both times, maybe not. I doubt I would have called a push on either river if I’d missed, so there’s some dumb luck there.
Now armed with the biggest stack at the table, I went on a serious rush. I called what looked like it might have been a blind push-steal with A2s, and flopped another ace to crack kings (great read, there), which loosened my image up enough to get someone else to stack off with second pair against my improved AQ on the next hand. Next up, pocket aces, and a mild scare when the next biggest stack on the table pushed a nut flush draw on the turn, but missed. I won the next two pots too, although they were fairly trivial in comparison to previous hands, and my stack; with 1500 players left in the tourney, I had a 30% lead over my nearest rival.
That was the high point; I got a touch dizzy, doubled someone up with a weak flush against his quads (yeah, real smart), and slowed down a tiny bit after that. The killer hand came when a player who’d been pushing his luck (to the point where I only barely had him covered) raised it 5xBB from UTG, and I flat called with AQs, and flopped J-T-rag with a flush draw. I didn’t think long before pushing his c-bet, and the slag had JTo. I made my flush, but only after he turned his full house, and that was the end of that.
Not to worry – I’m reasonably happy with the play, although clearly a smallball approach would have been smarter, as I certainly wasn’t in desperate need of a double-up.
I’m really enjoying my poker at the moment – even when I cock things up. Makes a nice change…
