Win some, lose some

I played in the FTP $24k last night. Not my best performance.

I tried to get something going early, but without any success at all. Every time I'd make a move, somebody moved back even bigger. I dropped almost half my stack on an ill advised move with KQo when the flop came up low and ragged. The other guy pushed all-in and I ran away with my tail between my legs.

A few hands later I sucked out against the same guy when I took my 88 against his KK and caught a set on the turn. That got me back to my starting stack.

I decided it might be in my best interest to wait for some actual cards before making another move on a pot. So I drifted sideways for quite a while.

Then came one of those hands where the action builds throughout the hand until somebody pushes all-in, but by then the pot is so big it's still giving good odds. I limped with a mid-suited ace. Several others limped as well. The flop brought an ace and one card of my suit. There was a min-bet and two calls. My ace didn't feel strong enough to make a move, so I called and hoped for the turn to bring me something good.

The turn brought another mid card of my suit. Unlikely to have been of great help to anyone else. One of the other players put out a weak bet. With TP, four to the nut flush, and nobody showing great strength, it was time to make a move. I raised to slightly less than the size of the pot. The bettor called.

The river paired the low card on the board. The other guy pushed all-in. I'm figuring him for a hand like mine -- a weak ace. I can't see him playing bottom pair (now trips) the way he has. Maybe he had bottom two pair and just filled, but pushing all-in doesn't seem a smart way to play that. Nope, I'm thinking we've both got aces and fives and both playing the jack on the board as our kicker. So I call.

I was wrong. He didn't have an ace. He didn't have a five. He had QJ. I took down a very nice pot and was suddenly pretty healthy.

There was a long period of going nowhere. Then I get TT in MP. UTG and UTG+1 both limp. This looks like a good time to make a move with both of them showing weakness. I pot it. It folds back to UTG who thinks a bit and then pushes all-in. He has me covered by a wide margin. It's possible he was weakly playing a big pair hoping to get action, but I'm leaning more toward a simple re-steal. I call. He turns over KJs. The flop is Q6T with one of his suit. The turn is a blank but he rivers a 9, giving him the straight, and I go home in 500th of 1100-some.

I don't normally like to be calling all my chips on just a coin flip, but I figured there was a chance he had a smaller pair and I'd have been going in a big favorite. Plus, I was down to M=10, so I needed to make a move soon anyway. When you add in that the pot was laying me 1.6:1, I guess it was the right move.

Later in the evening I played another Tier One tournament. It was a real roller coaster ride. Up and down and up and down. I was in deep trouble on several occasions, but each time managed to extricate myself, eventually getting past the bubble as the dominant stack. I felt pretty good after that one. It was like I actually had a clue about what I was doing.

I'm not sure yet what's up for the weekend. Maybe I'll check out some of the FTOPs prelims.