How it went - part III

I'm back from vacation, with a nice tan. [Unfortunately, I did not quite reach the stage yet where I can pay for vacations using poker winnings ;-) ] On vacation, I finally read The Theory of Poker. Quite interesting, I learned a few things. But I guess I am never again going to learn as much from a single book as I did when I read Harrington on Hold'Em (OK, two books).

Anyway, I realized that I never finished the story that I started before I left two weeks ago. Here is the thrilling conclusion...

The situation was as follows. A player had just been eliminated, bringing us down to 3 players.
Blinds 1k/2k (rising to 1.5k/3k in a few minutes)
Rob1606 61k
Yiwork 88k (to my immediate left)
Deanb23 13k

So the setting was quite favorable for me, especially because I did not have a very high opinion of the chip leader, but also because I was basically assured a second place here. The small blind could only survive 13 more games.

On the second hand, I got 55 as SB, I raise to 4BB, BB folds. Two hands later, as BB I get 22 and the SB (Deanb23) pushes for 10k. With 60k myself, this seems like an obvious call, given that my opponent is desperate. Nevertheless, while I can assume he does not have a pair, I know that I am only slightly favorite against any two cards (55% or so). Would it perhaps be better to fold here and let him take the blinds this round? I guess I would not be asking this question if I had won this hand :-) but I am interested to hear your opinion.

On the next hand, Deanb23 called and called postflop, apparently only on a flush draw - he most certainly did not get the odds for that call postflop, but he took no further action on the turn and folded to a river bet, so this seems the most likely explanation. This put him right back down to 14k. Very bad move.

On the next hand, I called with 48s for some reason. Well, I was the button, and I guess I was planning to steal on the flop. However, Deanb pushed as BB and this time it seemed prudent to fold :-) I proceeded to get 77 as BB and play it quite badly. Yiwork raised to 3xBB and I just called... Then I tried quite a small bet on the flop (4k in a pot of 13k) and he called, after which I gave up on the hand (the turn brought the third club as well as the third overcard). Of course I need to play much more aggressively preflop. Down to only 37k!

On the next hand, Yiwork flopped trips, checked it behind me (obviously) and I proceeded to hit top pair on the turn. I was lucky in that I managed to keep my loss limited, and I still had 22k after this hand. Of course the flop looked quite dangerous: 988. Things got even worse on the next hand when Deanb doubled up again off of Yiwork! Now the stacks were 22k (me), 108k and 30k...

I then hit middle pair on the K-high flop as BB and raised Deanb's minbet to 3xBB, to which he folded: 28k (vs 26k). My next BB was quite good - KTs - but unfortunately got folded to me. As a result, I decided to fold the next SB myself (97o).

Shortly after this, disaster struck when my AK got beaten by KJ on the river! Fortunately, Deanb only had 15k at this point, and I still had 27k, so I actuall survived this hand, if only with 12k left. The blinds were 1.5k/3k by now, so I just pushed the next hand (Q9o) when Deanb folded, but the BB held JJ... A miracle Queen on the river held me alive. That was the queen that earned me $80 (I think it was), the difference between 2nd and 2rd place. Because on the very next hand, Yiwork hit top pair strong kicker on the flop, while Deanb23 hit top pair top kicker... but Yiwork got a runner-runner flush (actually the river gave Deanb two pair, but that was not quite good enough under the circumstances!).

Situation now:
Blinds 1.5k/3k
Rob1606 21k
Yiwork 141k

So, it didn't look particularly good from here, but given that I could not have expected to have any chips at all here, I was not complaining. On the first hand, I folded with 42s after Yiwork minraised. Then I got K6o so I pushed with my remaining 18k. Meanwhile, I had wished my opponent good luck since we started the heads-up phase, and now he wrote to me "you will need it" as he turned up 44. I guess he thought he was a huge favorite or so.

Flop 8 5 T
Turn 6
River 7

Now who needed the most amazing luck on the river?? This hand hurt, obviously, but even if I had won it my situation would still have been very precarious (128k vs 35k). Oh well. I think that overall I played quite well, of course I made some not so good decisions (like in the 3-player phase) but I think I made lots of good decisions as well, and was happy with my game - and even more with the $324 :-)