That about says it all: played another $2+.2 tournament a few hours ago and finished in 21st place after some interesting (to say the least) situations.

I’m beginning to learn some specific skills that are required in such tournaments and one important lesson is to try to play a lot of hands when the blinds are still low. So did I, for example:

I even get the button here with my 63 suited. Flop is a welcome surprise and I bet this flop: I’m in last position so people will think easily that I’m trying to steal this one. It obviously works against this guy and he even tries to bluff me off my hand. Notice there’s no value in raising the river here: a bluff won’t call me here, only a hand that beats me. Then I took a small pot with AK before I received a gift in this hand:

For some reason this guy thinks he must shove here against a raise with his KQ off and helped me building up a decent stack. But then I was carddead for a really long period before I lost a big pot with KQ myself: I raised it up preflop and a shortstack shoved with TT. I lost the flip and became a shortstack myself. I doubled up again with QQ against JJ but when the blinds increased, I was becoming short again towards the bubble. That’s when I was eliminated:

I think my only mistake is being made preflop: I should just shove all-in there instead of raising it three times the big blind. Anyway, I shove with a flushdraw and a gutshot but instead my opponent gets runner runner quads…

…did I survive during my 11th tournament, a 90 player sng with a $2+.2 buy-in. First I lost a big pot against what I thought was a steamer, and then I got eliminated because I think I was steaming.

So what happened exactly? Well, in the very first hand of the tournament, the player on my left had to face a harsh bad beat. Then the second hand is played:

The same guy immediately reraises the next hand and I know he will push on almost every flop. So I kinda already decide to call when I hit my 5 of course, but also on this kind of flop, with a paired board. A steamer would never push here if he has hit a set of Aces. But he actually had another good hand… Some hands later I get AK:

Kinda frustrated by my earlier beat and the retarded reraise on the button I immediately shove all-in. It happens to be a coinflip situation but I don’t hit my ace or king, finishing in 82nd place. Better next time.

That pretty much describes the story of my fifth tournament. I didn’t get a lot of bad beats or cold decks, I wasn’t able to make a lot of good plays, it just wasn’t destined to be this time: 53th.

It all started reasonably well: I took a couple of small pots with QT suited (paired a Queen) and AA, but most of the time I just didn’t hit any flop. Then I lose half my stack on the following hand:

Now this is what’s called losing because your opponent plays bad, or just doesn’t have a clue at all. I mean, I don’t put him on an Ace because he would probably have raised preflop in that case. When he calls on the turn I’m almost a 100% sure (why wouldn’t he raise with a double flushdraw out there? or just because he has the best hand??) and am only afraid of a better 9. At the end he shows me the AT…monkey.

In what follows I become a short stack because I try to bluff a lot of loose cannons: bad plan. Anyway I make a comeback with this hand:

So that flop sucks, but the turn makes up for it. However, I lose some ammo again and finally I make my last move with KQ:

I am a huge favorite this time, but the flop is killing me again. This time no help on turn and river…

I played my first $5+.5 tournament and it went pretty well. Unfortunately I ended up as 14th, the top 12 being paid…

However, finishing in 14th place was quiete an accomplishment regarding my bad start. First I woke up with TT on the BB, where I raise it up and get called by the SB. Flop comes QJx and I make another bet, representing a strong hand obviously. I get called again and the turn comes an A: my opponent leads out, I give up the hand. Subsequently I get another premium pocket pair:

I give up my Queens because preflop I’m almost sure he has AK so on the flop I decide to stick with my read. So I’m kinda crippled after this hand but quickly after this I get a marvellous opportunity to recover from this:

The beautiful art of flopping a flush got me back on track  and I was able to play some good poker after that. But then I was carddead while the tournament was heading towards the bubble and I decided to take my chances with pocket snowmen:

So eliminated after a coinflip, maybe I’m gonna wait it out next time because this is kinda frustrating…

How nice it was to cash in the first tourney, how disappointing my second one was. I finished in 55th place without a lot of exciting moments…

My ‘carddead period’ was located right in the beginning of the tournament this time. I saw a lot of crazy moves though during this period, probably caused by the low buy-in. When I díd wake up with a decent hand, it was because of the same reason I didn’t build up a big stack. I got AQ offsuit two times and raised a decent amount (3-4 times the BB), but got a lot of callers anyway. I didn’t flop anything and it’s hard to take the pot with a continuation bet in those spots with all the multiway action. So I guess the lesson learned is that you’ll have to play VERY tight aggressive during those first levels (I’ll post some other tips now and then here).

I ended up with 700 chips during the third blind level (20/40) when I got pocket Jacks:

So I got eliminated in a coinflip situation, better next time I guess!