ripdog
01-30-2004, 03:17 PM
I played in a UB $20+$2 tourney--took 5th and felt pretty disappointed with it. I played super tight early and was down to ~850 going into the first break when I got KK. Short stack to my left ~450 went all-in, I went all-in behind him and another short stack went all-in after me. This bumped me up close to 2000, then I won the next hand to go on break at ~2800. Back from the break I got KK three more times and won large pots each time--up to ~10000. Then I get KK again two players go all-in ahead of me for ~4500 each, I go all-in and another short stack calls all-in behind me. I take down a 20,000+ pot and take the chip lead by 10,000 over second. At this point I decide to sit on the chips for a while until I get KK again, bet huge, two players go all-in behind me and I run into AA. Down to ~16000. I try to push someone off their weak A with a bluff. Down to 9600. I work my way back to 25000 by the time the final table gets seated. I'm only interested in 1st, 2nd, or 3rd place money here. First was worth $1492ish and 2nd got ~$960, 3rd was in the $650 range. My previous final tables were really depressing--going out 10th, 9th, 8th, and 7th for payouts of less than $50 (7th might have been worth $70). With the blinds at 1000/2000 the play got super aggressive. I got as high as 46,000 by re-raising a min raiser all-in with AK. He called immediately with AJ. Flop came J-X-K and I thought I'd lost. Then I noticed the King. The guy to my left had disconnected with about 70000 and had been blinded down to 46000 when I re-raised the most aggressive player at the tables EP pot-sized raise with AJo (10000 raise), he put me all-in for the rest of my chips (less than 10,000)--around 35000 total. He had me covered by at least 20000. Here's where I think I [censored] up. Should I have folded and waited for the disconnected guy to blind out? I've made the mistake of not getting all of my chips in first, but I think I would have been called anyway. But still, I think it's a huge mistake to re-raise a big stack so that it leaves you with a small amount of chips left over. It was clear that the disconnected guy wasn't going to make it back. 4th got $360ish maybe a bit more. Anyway, he turns up As 10s suited, flop comes 10-spade-spade, turn is another spade, river is a Jack. I always feel so unsatisfied when I lose. I had set my goal as top three and didn't get there. Overall I feel that my mistakes were minimal. The bluff was pretty bad and had almost no chance of working, I raised pre-flop (pot-sized) several times and one particular player would always call and then bet out huge on the flop. I knew that he was making plays at me, but I never flopped a hand that I could pick off his bluff with. The final hand I got my chips in with the best hand, but I think that folding might have been the better play. How do you guys feel after playing 3.5 hours and winning $250? Bad? What's wrong with me?