Monday, January 09, 2006

Tilt Resurfaces

9 JAN 06

Just a short woe-is-me post. I tilted again last night, and I’m upset about it. I was playing online (as opposed to at the Muckleshoot Casino, since the dear and patient wife is living it up in Vegas), and I went back to my old stand-by – the two table turbo SNG. I love these, and have had great success in the past. I have probably cashed in 40 or 50, and it’s one of the few areas of my online play where I’m up overall. If I could just avoid those ring games…

Anyway, in the first touney, I busted out 7th with AA, when the chip leader hit his set with pocket 9’s. In the second I busted 5th out with QQ when the AQ fill his straight on the river. No big deal. I’m used to that.

But I guess I was still smarting when I started the $10 + 1 Limit Hold ‘em Re-Buy tourney. As I’ve mentioned before, my wife is a better limit hold ‘em player than me, but I’ve cashed in a few so I was feeling pretty good. We started with about 160, and with re-buys, first place was just over $1000. The top 18 cashed.

In hour 3, I’m sitting on 25,000 chips. The tourney leader is one to my left (isn’t that always the case?) with about 50,000. I’m dealt 88 in the SB. Blinds are 600/1200. I raise to 2400, and he calls after a short pause. The flop is A J 4. I bet and he calls. The turn is a 2. I bet – he calls. The river is a Q. I check. He checks and flips over his J 6. I busted out one hand later in 30th.

In retrospect, it was worth a call preflop, and maybe even one bet on the flop, but why battle with the tourney leader at this stage? Perhaps I should have folded preflop? I think it was the tilt that caused me to bet the turn – I should have let the hand go at that point. In fact, he should have folded at that point, but donkey’s always draw – especially when they are the chip leader, I guess. I don't think I had the table image as a bluffer. He was risking a big part of his stack, too. I guess I made a decision and went with it.

My final though has nothing to do with this, but it made me smile when I read it: A woman has the last word in any argument. Anything a man says after that is the beginning of a new argument.

1 comment:

iamhoff said...

Doc,

I agree, it was worth the preflop call. With two overcards on the flop and the tourney leader not going anywhere except your chipstack, folding would be the preferred move (yeah, hindsight and all that crap). It's hard to get away from mid level pairs, but I'm learning to really watch my post flop play. For what it's worth, there's my 2 cents. Feel free to take it to a .01/.02 table!