1/8/06

Entered a 10 person tournament. Decided to try a new strategy. Since someone goes all-in pre-flop first hand almost every time, whenever 3 or 4 people call...they end up with such a huge chip lead it becomes quite difficult to overcome that. If they are a decent player, by the time you get to top 3 or heads up they can have a 5 - 1, 6 - 1 or greater chip lead. So this time, I saw Q/J off and decided I would call just so I would either have chips to play with or else be out the door early. Yes, it is a point of pride that I finish top 3 almost all the time (and have won probably a half dozen tournaments even with the handicap) but I figured it was worth being an idiot on the first hand for once.

As it turned out, only one guy went all in, everyone else folded and so it was head to head. He ended up with Q/10. I hit a Jack on 4th street so he was drawing dead. Just to add insult to injury the River gave me trips and I started out with a comfortable 3500 chips after the first round. Since almost everyone had called the big blind, only 1 other person even had 1500 chips.

I then went into passive-aggressive mode, paying to see the flops and then folding if they missed. Most of them missed but at one point with A/2 someone raised 100 pre-flop. I called. The flop paired the 2, nothing else super dangerous....no flush draws, no straights. I called a bet. 4th street was another 2. I raised 500. He called. The River was harmless, I raised 500. He came over the top to go all-in. It was only 300 more, only a boat would beat me so I called. He had 2/Q....trips 2s with a Queen kicker...a good hand, just not good enough to beat the trips 2s with an Ace kicker. So I had put a second person out.

Missed a bunch of flops, then hit one where we all kept checking, hit the 7 high straight on the River. The problem was...someone else hit a straight as well...they had A/3 to my 3/7. So they went all in. A quick check showed they could do no better so I called...and sure enough they had the lower straight so I had busted my third opponent.

Soon we got down to 4 of us....one from London who was sitting out after taking a mild beating from me....maybe 300 chips when I raised the Cowboys pre-flop, the board had a long-shot gut shot straight so I raised again to keep anyone from calling on the draw....they folded, i showed the Cowboys, he started sitting out. I had about 6000 chips, dude from Idaho had 5200, the dude sitting out about 750, and one other guy about 1800. Myself and the other chip leader said "let's check around and get rid of the sitter." This would assure he would finish out of the money. Instead, short stack decided to try and steal all the blinds. Twice he raised pre-flop and Idaho called him, busting him the second time....when the sitter had 40 chips left. One more round and he would have finished in the money because he lost his last 800 on the all-in. Stupid.

The heads up started slowly. We basically just kept checking it back and forth. Then I started betting into it when I paired and he would call....and I won them. He won hands with a full house and a straight....but did not bet into either one so it became an inexorable grind as my stack grew and his got shorter until I was charging him 750 just to see the flop...and I was hitting them more than he so it became a foregone conclusion and I put him away with an all-in at 750 chips for him to take down the tournament.