Get your money in when…

18. October 2004 | Category: 50outs

…you have the best of it and protect it when you don’t. So or something like this goes the word in “Rounders”, one poker movie that I like. I totally failed on this in my last session. I managed to throw my money in 5 times against better hands within a 2 hour period and I just can not deny the fact that I have known that I am beat at that point. Wow, very good, very professional. In retro all I can say is “this player went on tilt, this player went on tilt, this player…”.

Friday was the first qualifier day for the german championships in 7stud, just 4 levels of play, buyin 600eur, rebuy each 400eur with a maximum of 3 rebuys. Starting chips were 2,000, how much chips you get for a rebuy depends on the time you buy – first 2 levels 3,000, level 3+4 4,000 and levels 5+6 give you 6,000 (these levels were played on saturday). While the limit starts with a spread of 20-100 in level 1, level 5 already has 200-1000 with 100 ante, so you get 30 big bets for you money in level 1 but only 6 big bets in level 5. My goal was to reach day 2 without any rebuy, which did not work as I had to buy one rebuy very early. Day 1 went smooth from thereon, I had 8,700 chips when we stopped the clock. I passed the cashgame as I was tired and still ill.

Saturday the tournament started early and so did I. I got great cards but all of them cracked. I played 3 hands, all got beat by ridicoulous flushes or turn-river two pair and I had to take my second rebuy. I played one hand, got beat (my QQ-A against 4-7-4) and had to take the third. Finally I won one hand (small pot) when things started to get interesting. We did not know how many players were qualified for the final of the championship in three weeks, as 4 casinos took part in this and not the number of players, the amount of money decided how many from each location come to the final (32 total). So we were in the dark if 9, 10, 11 or maybe even 12 players qualify. 12 players left is what we had at that point and everybody was already cheering, I reminded sceptic. I my calculation 10 was the most likely number of players from our location. I was very low on chips (like 2,500 left with ante 200 and limit 1,000-10,000). I decided to sit it out and hope for 2 others to bust out before me, just to be 100% sure. Now comes the difficult part of getting pocket pairs and throw them away. I got 99-Q once, mucked it, the pot was raised behind me, everybody folded, raiser showed KK. Pfhew. I got 44-A, mucked it, the pot is raised, re-raised and war was declared when ony player busted out with queens full against rolled-up 7’s which turned to quads. One to go. A few minutes later on the other table, one guy also low on chips decided to call a raise all-in with KT-2o, catched 2-7-2-A (3) for open trips but lost against three kings. Phew again, two players out, I made it to the final ten. My next hand was 48-4, I raised allin myself, got called in one spot by 36-Ao which made two pairs nines against my two pair eight’s, oh wow. This must have set me up for my failure in the cash game later on. Anyway, an hour later we got the message that only 10 players made it to the final, I am one of these!

Katja was also there, rejecting to play this bad structure and seating for me. While that worked in the tournament it failed in the cash game, where I played well except for these 6 hands. Six hands wrong played in a pot-limit game can ruin your day and this is exactly what happened here also, I was already ahead over 1G when I fell in love with pocket tens against a re-raise from an open ace. I convinced myself that a thrid ten will fall and shoved all my money in, got called, got my third 10 on the turn but stared at aces full of queens. All squeezing did not help to catch the 4th 10 (hey my nick is 50outs!) so I lost. I re-did stupid stuff like that to loose something like 1,500eur. Ok I had decent draws and many life cards but the point is I knewed every single time that they hold what they represent and still called or even raised. This was my “throw the money out of the window” party day 🙁

Don’t bet that I am still in that mood when you arive here for the german championships!