Extreme Pain (or How I Kicked Myself in the Junk)

Dear readers, let this serve as a warning to you on how NOT to play a hand. Saturday, David, ToM, Chilly and I played in a very fishy $25 home tournament. I was sitting in pretty good standing: nine players left, blinds at T75 - 150, and I have approx. T3500 in chips. One stack has me dwarfed, one is around mine and the rest have fewer chips.

UTG, I look down to see AKo. Nice. I bet T450 - and the small stack pushes for T460. Action folds to the small blind (roughly the same number of chips), who softly cursed when I raised. He called the bet. Figuring (rightly) that I had him dominated, I called - and then I couldn't figure out why my boys felt like someone just took a hammer to them.

The flop - J-4-rag rainbow. Small blind checks. I bet T1000. After much hemming and hawing, he calls. This is not what I wanted, so when another four spikes on the turn, I push. And he calls. I now figure he has a jack, and I'm not feeling very good about this hand any longer.

I show my big slick, as does the small stack. And the small blind shows his QJs. Crap. Now down to four outs to chop the small main pot and win the side, I watch the rag fall on the river and I started thinking about hitting the boats, since it turns out the small blind had me covered.

After getting over my irritation at being called with QJs, I realized that it was my own fault. I should have pushed pre-flop instead of calling the (small) raise. The small blind probably would have folded. Had ne not done so, then I would have cursed his name and called him a donkey, but I let him in the pot.

So I'm sure that the small blind enjoyed finishing in the money for a second time while I headed off to the casinos - for another fun session of junk-kicking.

Overall, I was fairly happy with my play, but I need to be more aggressive on these hands, and not trust that a draw like big slick (granted, a strong one), will hold up to several callers. I didn't put my chips in when I had the best hand - I did it with the second best hand, which kept me from cashing in on this tournament a second time.

Until next month.