[CrackerZack]

I've been playing ring games for a while, quite a while now actually. I do ok I guess. Anyway, I really really enjoy playing in tournaments even though I'm a losing tournament player. I tend to offset this with my odd rituals. This is how I play tournaments. I find a tournament I want to play. Say its a 30+3 or something, about an hour or so before the tourney, I sit in a ring game, play until I win the amount of the buyin, then sit and wait for my tourney. If I end up losing in this time, I don't play in the tourney (unless its a limit tourney since I can play those blind in early rounds). This works pretty well for me. It gets a bit tricky with rebuys and addons so I try to avoid those, but I tend to plan to always take the addon and rarely rebuy. Now while I'm still losing money, I feel like it isn't my money since I just won it. Strange, but it works for me. Now while this makes me feel like I'm not really losing money, when I don't place, it really really really doesn't help with taking beats to get KO'd. In ring games I've taken horrific beats over and over again. Running pairs, 1 outers, whatever. Its never a big deal, you can rebuy and play on, but it isn't like this in tournaments obviously. I mean, after last night I can understand Phil's outbursts. A single beat to get KO'd, ok, stings, but ok. But its mentally crippling to be in a commanding lead, and take a number of beats only to be bubbled. I'm pretty certain I don't have the makeup to be a tournament player since this has been killing me all day. It was a dumb $50 tourney, yet I swore off poker and can't wait for vacation to be away from any type of cards for a couple of weeks. Anyway, not meaning to rant, but I'm curious if this is the type of thing that kills anyone aspiring to play in MTTs? I would like to move out of the realm of loser, but I'm not sure I have what it takes.

Only one hand to post that I'm a bit curious about...

4 players left, first 2 win seats in a bigger tourney, 3rd gets $425, 4th gets it in the pooper. I'm in 2nd with T31K (of 120K total). I'm in the BB with 5c5h. SB is on the short stack. He's definitely the best remaining player at the table, if I'm not, which is very possible. He'll lay down a hand if you out-price him, etc. The other 2 usually will not. Anyway...blinds 600/1200, ante 75, short stack on the SB open raises (23.7K stack) to 3600 and I call. Question 1, should I make a big re-raise here?

Flop: 4c 3c 2c

SB bets 4800 into the 7500 pot, my move? I raised 7200 more to 12000. Too little? He reraises basically allin 7200 more. I'm certainly not folding at this point, but wasn't sure if I should've moved him in on the flop. Anyway, I put his all the way in 800 more and he calls and turns over Ac 8h.

Thoughts?

We all know how it turned out, 8d turn, Tc river (just for a little salt). Did I really misplay this one? I am/was pretty sure he'd fold on the flop with overcards and no club draw. Let me have it...

Zack

Edit: I was against the SB