I'm an idiot

One of these days I'm going to start writing down all the poker lessons I've learned. Hopefully this will keep me from having to relearn them the hard way.

Lesson for today -- when somebody you've sat next to all tournament, who has a VP$IP of 12%, who you've never seen even hint at bluffing... when this guy raises, believe it. And believe that he knows he has something.

I played a simple $20 SnG at Full Tilt last night. Did nothing but keep my head afloat for a long time. Then I triple up with KK vs JJ vs AK. Next hand I catch QQ and add a bit more. In two hands I go from second to last to a very comfortable chip lead. I hung on to the lead for a long time by basically doing nothing. Eventually we get to the bubble with me still in the lead and I start stealing pots. Not every pot, but often enough that I started feeling full of myself, as if I could take every pot just by putting the other guy to the test. Then I ran into someone who passed the test.

I raise to 300 with 88 from UTG. BB comes over the top big, making it 950 to go. I guess I figured with such a big raise he either had two big cards or a weak pair. I know at this point in the tournament I'd definitely be slowplaying a big pair. So I pushed and he insta-called with KK. Thinking it through, maybe it wasn't THAT stupid of a move on my part, but I still shouldn't have risked it. I could have given up the 300 and still had the chip lead.

Two hands later I pushed with TT, got called by 77, and bubbled when he turned a third 7. From chip leader to gone in three hands. Basically, one mistake cost me the tournament.

On Saturday I ventured back to Stars for the first time in ages. It had been a long time since I played a regular SnG (the one above was played on Sunday), so I decided to try a $10 single table just to see if I still knew how to play those.

Second lesson for today -- when you are clearly the stronger player heads-up, do not be in a hurry to get things over with.

I may never really learn this one. I've fallen victim to it I couldn't tell you how many times.

A corollary of this one is that if a player appears to be out of his element when heads-up, he probably won't catch on during this session. If you keep raising with air and he continues to give it up without a struggle, when he does come back at you it almost certainly means he's got something. The odds are very slim that he's caught on and is fighting back with nothing but chutzpah.

As you may have guessed by now, I finished 2nd in the Stars SnG.

I also played a Tier One SnG at FTP where I had a brief lapse of situational awareness. I went into the final table in very good shape. The kind of shape where you can pretty much fold your way to a token.

And then, on the ticket bubble, I get AQo and for just an instant forget that my goal is survival, not stack building. I push all-in with nothing but shorties left to act. I know better than to do this. In almost any other situation it's a good move, but not in a multi-way satellite.

One of the shorties, quite inexplicably, decides to call with J3 sooted. Okay, my move was stupid from the perspective that I was risking a lot to build my stack at a time when it didn't really need building. But to call an all-in with J3 sooted? It's one thing to think somebody's trying to buy the pot, but you still need to have something to go against them with. For the life of me I can't understand that call. Naturally, he caught a J and I didn't improve.

Then my KK goes down to KQo when he rivers a straight. I bubble the ticket, picking up a few bucks for my trouble.

Stupid, stupid, stupid.