Poker content - sort of

Because any of my play can only ever be described as "sort of" poker. I'm gonna take a break from subscribing to comments on pissed off or apologetic blog posts to recount my tournament play last night.

I went down to a small town south of here to play in a semi-underground tourney. I say semi-underground because the guy does take a small ($5 per person) rake, but it's much more like a big home game than an underground game. I've played it once before, when Special K and I went down in flames, finishing first and second. First and second to leave, that it.

So my whole goal was to make it past 2nd-bustout. Which I barely managed to do when I avoided going broke on a board of K-4-7-x-x and I held K-4 from the big blind. I got raised on the turn, which likely saved me chips, but I was still dumb enough to call his river bet and announce to the table that he had a set of 4s but I was paying him off anyway. I hate when I allow my ego to convince me that's a brilliant move. I don't mind paying off a bet on the river in a cash game when I'm 95% sure I'm behind, if it gets me information I can use later, but in a tournament bleeding away chips like that means that it's far less likely I'll have the opportunity to use that information later.

So I was short-stacked with 405 chips (blinds started at 10/20) with 25/50 blinds when I stole the blinds once, then tripled up with QTo when I was called by AK and 66 and hit a Queen on the flop and a Queen on the river to give me a little breathing room. Not long afterwards, I picked up Jacks in a blind and came over the top of a middle position raiser, who called me with 99. I didn't quite double up there, but I was comfortable in chips again.

I managed to make it to breaking down to 2 tables from a start of 3 at that point, then right after I'd been talking to a guy on break about how much I liked playing suited one-gappers, I pick up 10-8 spades in late position. I see the flop with 3 others, and it comes down Q-J-6 with two spades. I've picked up a flush draw and a gutty draw, and call the flop bet from a guy who's pretty obviously packing top pair, decent kicker. He checks the turn and I take the free card, which is the 9c, giving me my gutshot. I check to him, expecting the value bet on the river, but he checks behind me. Nice value check, me. I rake a big pot and can dodge and weave my way to the final table. We actually lost two players on the same hand before the final table, so it was 8-handed instead of 9-handed. I make a couple of preflop raises with KQ, KJ in late position, but have to dump when the Ace flops.

I find myself pretty short, with an M of around 7-8 when we're 6-handed, and a big stack raises in front of me. I look down at Ac-Ks, and reraise all in. He thinks for a moment before calling.

"Are we racing?" I ask.

"Probably." he replies.

"Ace-King."

"Fuck"

"Oh, then you're dominated."

Sure enough, he tables AQo. I turn to the guy next to me and say "I'm doomed."

Flop is 6-As-Qs and I reach for my jacket. 10s on the turn gives me 15 outs, but the 4c on the river wasn't on the list, so I bust out two off the money, and go home.

I played fairly well with the notable exception of paying off the big river bet early when I knew I was beat, and the only suckout I unleashed was when my Q-10 made trips. So I made one suckout, I lost to one suckout, but overall I felt like I played pretty well.

We now return you to other sites which may be able to better fuel your need for drama-bombs. All my drama has been in the real world lately, I don't have time for invisible internet drama. In another milestone moment for me and Suzy, we bought a nice bed and had it delivered today.

We've been together 13 1/2 years, and this is the first decent bed we've bought new. We bought a new bed from a cheap-ass furniture store a couple years after we got married, and it sucked. Then I bought a bed from a friend who was moving into a smaller place and needed to get rid of her queen-sized bed. It was a good bed, but it already had some years on it when I bought it, so it's sucked for the past couple of years.

Now we got a BED. We went to the Original Mattress Company, which is a locally-owner mattress factory, and bought their top-of-the-line pillowtop king-size mattress. Then went to Chez Tarzhay (you know, that place where I've funded Drizz's 401(k) all fall) and spent a buttload of money on new bedding. So if I'm late for work tomorrow, it's because I don't wanna get out of my new bed.