My Lucky Card Protector
(a gift from my airbnb host in Chiang Mai)
Hard to believe I have had a tournament success so soon, I placed in a 3 way tie for 1st this afternoon out of 67 entrants and won $1588, after subtracting the tournament fee of $130 and the $20 dealer tip and the $20 bubble boy fund, I won $1415 profit which I can add to my poker fund.
Tournament started at 12:15pm and I collected my prize at 6:30pm, which is a perfect amount of time for poker play, any longer and I tend to get sluggish and my body rebels from sitting too long.
The tournament started out normal for me, lots of folding and watching others gaining big hands, although in the first 90 minutes I picked up AK 3 times and ended up losing a 2000 chip pot with it early on so I had to be careful to conserve my chips after that, no cold calling raises with speculative hands. The third time I picked up AK there were 3 limpers before me so I decided to shove all in for 7500 and pick up their chips so that I could get back to 10,000 with little risk, everyone folded so my plan worked and it felt good to be back at the starting chip point.
Soon after I picked up AQ in middle position and called an utg raise for 500, the utg raiser was a guy I played with 2 days ago and he likes to play many pots, limping and raising with a wide range of cards, had I known it was him who raised utg I would have 3 bet but he had just been seated a few hands before and I did not realize who it was so in one sense it was a mistake, but it worked out in my favor because if I 3 bet he would have surely called and that would have been very bad because he raised with 5 7 suited and flopped the nut straight so I would have lost more than 500 chips. The player with 5 7 loves to talk and he had a table mate who complemented him so there was constant poker banter going on and of course I mostly remained silent but that type of table dynamic can be tricky to navigate because people who get into pots with the talkers usually join the conversation and because I play very few hands early in a tournament I was one of the few at the table who was not participating in the poker talk. I tried my best not to let the social isolation affect my positive energy or my strategy to play only good starting hands. It can be easy to fall into a strategy of seeing many flops so that I can fit into the table dynamic but I was good about staying in my comfort zone and thus I was pretty much invisible for the first 2 hours of the tournament.
The first major hand I played I was dealt KK in late position and made a standard raise, the small blind 3 bet and I knew he was strong because I had not seen him get out of line but with KK it was an easy decision to push all in and after a few moments indecision he called off his stack and he showed down AQ....
Before going into flop details I want to mention that for the past year I have had the recurring thought as follows - "whatever I fear will be drawn close, whatever I desire will be pushed away", this is a pessimistic view of reality but it resonates with my experience so throughout today's tournament that thought was a constant refrain during especially stressful hands where I found myself drifting into desire or fear - desiring a certain card or fearing a card which would help an opponent - after repeating the refrain my mind and emotions flow into acceptance of external outcomes rather than trying to influence them in some kind of peripheral way. Whatever card comes so be it and it was liberating emotionally to be able to accept the whimsical decrees of the poker gods.
...and so I went into acceptance mode, fear and desire in the background of memory and I dodged the ace and almost doubled my stack to over 20k. I should mention that before getting the KK the talkative guy was transferred to another table and this helped me to relax a bit. Certain strong or negative personalities appear to have the ability to influence not only the outcome of the cards but also the decisions people will make and when I notice such a personality influencing my decision making in a negative way I have to struggle to retain balance and control.
Just before the table broke I was in the big blind with Q9 clubs and there were two limpers so I let the action go and the flop was a good one for my hand, 2 clubs and I paired my 9. Not knowing the ranges of my opponent's hands I decided to bet out hoping to take down the pot without resistance but the small blind, who checked to me, re-raised all in. He had around 7000 chips so if I called and did not improve (I guessed that I was behind but that my outs would justify a call) I would still have over 10,000 chips so I called and the small blind shockingly showed down AA, I can see why he played it the way he did, he was trying to trap and disguise his hand so that someone would overplay a single pair but my hand was better than that and after the cards were shown the table chastised the guy with AA saying he should have raised pre-flop because then I would have folded and when the turn brought another 9 and the river a blank, my chip stack was now close to 30k.
When the table broke we were down to 27 players and within a few hands I was on the button with A10 offsuit and when it folded to me I raised and both blinds folded but the small blind was a man with a very strong personality and he loved to talk and appeared to enjoy verbal confrontations, both for enjoyment and for the chance to get into the head of his opponent, a sort of sophisticated poker trash talker, and as I was scooping the blinds he said to me "so what, you know how to play poker, congratulations", in a manner which was subtle with anger and contempt. I have been practicing to always keep a neutral expression on my face, never to express any type of negative emotion with facial features, so I showed him my A10 as a way to break down the perception that I was simply raising to steal the blinds and said nothing and expressed nothing. I stayed in my own head and decided I would try to avoid playing hands with him due to his large stack size and my experience of getting burned with bad beats when I play head to head against a negative/strong personality and for the rest of the tournament I was fortunate not to play any large pots with him.
After an hour I looked down at AJ offsuit from utg and decided to raise, hoping my image as only showing down strong hands would make everyone fold but a player in middle position called and the big blind called, the flop came down 9 5 7, all diamonds, and I took another look at my cards and saw that I was holding the A of diamonds so when the small blind checked I put out a raise, middle position folded and the small blind announced call but appeared to be intending to raise all in because he had only 5000 behind but the verbal declaration forced him to just call my bet, the turn brought another diamond giving me the nuts and the small blind checked and I bet enough to put him all in and the small blind did not look like he wanted to call but realized with only 5000 behind it was practically forced, I noticed his hands trembling when he reached for the last of his chips and he turned over JJ and the guy to my left, the strong personality, gave advice to the small blind "you should have shoved pre man, he would have folded AJ," which was true but now he was drawing dead and I scooped a nice pot and my stack was now healthy at 45000 chips, slightly above average.
Thirty minutes later I am dealt AQ offsuit from the cutoff and raise and the small blind goes all in, a guy I played with two days ago who crippled my stack when I held QQ and he shoved all in preflop with 67 offsuit and ended up making a straight. He told me on break that I was unlucky with all-ins as if it was definitive so he must have been feeling confident when he shoved all in because if he could beat my QQ with 67 offsuit he surely could beat me with his 10 10 but his theory of me being an all-in loser did not hold up because I flopped a queen and won a healthy pot and now had over 80,000 chips as we went to the break.
Soon we were down to the final table and the tournament paid seven players. I was in good shape with over 100,000 chips so I had a decent chance to make the money. When we reached eight remaining everyone put in $20 to pay the bubble boy, who would be the next person to bust out, and soon after we paid the bubble boy and it felt good to be in the money and it felt even better to look down at 2 black aces. I raised from middle position and the button, who had the same amount of chips as me, called, as did the big blind. The flop was A 9 3 rainbow, I flopped gin and after the big blind checked I studied the board for about 10 seconds and decided to check. Without much thought the button announces all in and I can't think of a better feeling in poker when someone shoves all in while I am holding the nuts. The big blind folded and when I insta called the button, who was a confident and competent player, knew that he had made a big mistake and it was confirmed when he showed down 10 10, someone said they held a 10 so he was drawing dead and I was now close to being the chip leader with 250,000 chips.
I was able to ride out the ups and downs of the final table without too many losses and when we were down to four players I raised from utg with 88 and the big blind, a successful tournament veteran, shoved all in. If I called and lost my stack would be cut in half and I may end up going out in 4th but I decided that I was most likely a slight favorite and was willing to gamble with 88 and was pleasantly surprised to see him turn over 66 and my 88 held and I was now chip leader with 3 players remaining.
After 20 minutes I lost a bit of my stack and all 3 of us were fairly equal in chips so we decided to chop for the 3 way tie for 1st.
A great day for me, I was lucky, played competently in most instances, and had a lot of fun.
It feels nice to have a big bump for my poker fund, the goal is not to make money from poker but to play for as long as I can and today's win gives me the opportunity to extend my poker playing days -
Thanks to the Poker Gods for looking favorably upon my efforts today.
| 03/23/19 | $130 buy in Tournament. | Result – 1/67 - $1588 |
| $698 -130 – 20 – 23 – 3 + 1588 = $2110 | ($20 bubble fee/$23 dealer tip) | |
| Total fee - $170 | ||
| $1/$2 cash game -$3 loss |