My Big Game Sunday

Sunday was a day of big poker tournaments for me. Earlier in the week I won a ticket to the Full Tilt $500k at 6pm, and then there was the final BBT event, Miami Don's Big Game, at 9:30pm.

I wish I could say the outcome was better. I finished in the upper half of the $500k field, but still well out of the money. And my Big Game results were roughly the same. The only bright spot was that I got just enough points to squeak into the top 50 on the BBT leaderboard and qualify for the freeroll.

In the $500k there was one guy at my first table who was the poster child for calling stations. How somebody who plays like this ever got into this tournament is beyond me. Maybe it was a case of more money than brains. Of course, I shouldn't be bragging when it comes to the brains thing. I'd already identified this guy as a calling station, but I still made a run at a bluff against him. Against anyone who knew how to read the board the bluff probably would have worked, but not against the calling station. And I clearly should have known better. I did get it back when he checked his way into my hitting a straight and then, with a board of A3456 and him holding AK, called my large river bet. I was very sorry when somebody else busted him a short while later. I was hoping he'd luck into getting somebody's chips so I'd have a shot at taking them from him.

And that was pretty much the only high point of my $500k. I went card dead and just could not get anything going. It was very disappointing.

I tried to get my mind cleared and ready for Miami Don's Big Game, but it was tough to shake off my exceedingly lackluster results in the $500k. I certainly had no delusions of winning, but I had hoped to money. So with a bit of a cloud already over my head I started the Big Game.

Naturally, my table was filled with total pushover players. Lucko21, hoyazo, MiamiDon himself, jeciimd, irongirl01, TripJax, ChapelncHill, and Kajagugu. Yeah, pushovers, right. You'd be hard pressed to come up with a tougher blogger table.

Fairly early irongirl01 and Kajagugu got into a big battle that turned out set over set, irongirl on the losing end. She was put out of her misery a few hands later. Really bad break for irongirl.

Hoyazo and I got into an interesting hand together. Considering the number of times hoy and I have been at the same table, it's surprising we've not gone head to head all that many times. The times we have there has been enough trickery that we now both seem extremely wary when we find just the two of us in the pot. I usually get the impression of two boxers dancing around each other in the middle of the ring, each not sure he wants to be the first to make contact.

This time was no different. He raised to 3BB and I called from the BB with 66. The flop was somewhat uninteresting. I check after a bit of a pause. Hoy thinks a bit, then checks. The turn paired the board. I check. Hoy bets 280 -- about 2/3 the pot. I raise to 720 and hoy eventually folds. I thanked him for the dance and we went our separate ways.

I moved sideways for a long time until I managed to get very lucky against columbo. Like they always say on TV, the third raise means aces or kings, and I should have paid attention. Columbo raises, I re-raise with AKo, columbo pushes for 1500 more. At this point there's over 4000 in the pot so if he's got anything other than aces I'm getting the right odds to make the call. I do, he flips up kings, and I flop an ace to take down a very juicy pot.

Sadly, I got rather full of myself and ran my top pair no kicker nut flush draw into loud423's set of fives. My newly won chips quickly made their way into loud423's stack. A short while later I got some of it back when my AK proved stronger than loud423's A6.

I later took another fair sized pot with QQ, but that was pretty much the end of the road for big pluses in my Big Game. With blinds/antes at 200/400/50 and my stack at 5590 I found AKo UTG and raised to 4BB. MiamiDon, renown for pushing all-in with pretty much any two cards, makes the push and I call. He shows 99, I don't improve, I hit the rails.

As I said toward the beginning, my 17th (of 45) place finish gave me just enough points to squeak into 50th spot on the BBT leaderboard. So, assuming real life doesn't get in the way, I'll be at the freeroll.