A for Effort

Or perhaps that should be E for Effortless. After all, it doesn't take much effort to fold crap. Perhaps the best paraphrased cliche' to describe the RPT for me last night is, Slow and Steady but loses a Race.

Here is my tournament in a nutshell. The first river I saw was the 4th hand after the second break (which I believe was hand 138 or so of the tournament). By rights, I shouldn't have seen that river either. I was in the SB and it folded to me so I raise it up about 4x with Kh8h. The BB repops and I tank. I know I should just let it go, but this exact thing happened on the last hand before the second break. I think I had something like A8 on that hand and decided I didn't want to go busto on the last hand before the break, and I'd hate to make a stand by calling all-in with A8.

With that in mind it made sense to fold the K8 suited, but I pretty much decided to gamble. Up to that point I had not had a hand better than one pair. I had seen only 3 turns, and as I mentioned, no rivers. So I put the rest of my money in and he calls the extra couple hundred. I find, not unexpectedly, that I am up against AQ. Miraculously I river a flush and keep going.

An orbit or so later I flop an open end straight draw and bet out with one caller. The turn gives me the nut straight, but puts three hearts on board (I had one heart but it was fairly weak). I am relieved when my turn bet gets a fold and not a shove. That was the second of the only two hands in which I had better than one pair...out of a total of 190+ hands.

I somehow managed to squirm my way into the final table with a decent stack; a little better than 12K. But my final table experience did not last long. In the BB I get 77. It is folded to the button who position raises. The SB reraises to about 4k or so. I figure the button will fold his position raise, and I put the SB on a big Ace (at least that's what I was hoping), so I make a move and shove with my 77. The SB goes in the tank, and I figure I was right, but I'm still begging for no call. Ultimately he decided to call with his AJ and spiked a Jack on the flop; thanks for playing. The downside of Pyrrhic victories, is that the victor gets destroyed.

All in all, I should be relatively happy with the run I made considering I got virtually no help from the deck. But at the end of the day, it's another non-cash and that doesn't help my BBT3 schedule. Congratulations to whomever the donkey was who ended up winning.