Loosing Focus…
So was playing in a tourney of 50 last week. It was an unlimited re-buy for the first hour with a double add on before the break. I made 2 rebuy’s and an add on which isnt to bad, probably around the average of what players make in a tournament like this. The whole tourney was sitting pretty much on an average stack so wasn’t too stressed about not making it into the money. When there were two tables left I got AK suited. A player before me raised 2 times the blind and I re-raised double that. He called so I put him on a pair but not too high for he would have probably pushed me all in if he had KK or AA. Flop came out 7,6,2 rainbow and he bet what I raised before the flop. I went for the bluff and re-raised and my opponent pushed all-in…Obviously I folded but that took a decent size of my stack. After I threw my cards face up he showed me 99 so I made the right decisin after all.
I managed to build my stack back up to what it was before that hand but by then we were moving to the final table and the average was way higher than before. I was shortstacked at the final table but was determined to grind it out and so I did. I lasted until there were 6players left wihtout playing a single hand but the blinds were 800/1600 now and my total stack was 3800 so it was time to win some all-in’s…I got a bit lucky I must admit, sitting on big blind and having 2200 left I got JJ and got called when I pushed by the chip leader. He had K9 and I ended up winning with the Jacks. Then when I was sitting on the button I got AA and obviously pushed after there were a couple of callers before me. The other short stack called and I ended up winning with the total pot bringin me up to 24,000 with everyone elses blind’s that were in the pot.
This kind of made me loose my focus as I got excited and stopped paying attention to details of the game. There were 5 of us left and blinds 1000/2000, I was the big blind, chip leader right after me and after him a player who had 2000 exactly in chips left. I had Q6 and ended up catchin top pair on the flop and pushed in my chips against the chip leader in a reckless move. He called having Q10 and I ended up getting out 5th. If I had only paid attention that the next 2 hands have I waited the player with 2000 would have most likely been blinded out and I would place at least one higher and get at least $1000 more in prize money…Unfortunate but a valuable lesson not to get to excited over winning big all-in’s when they are really needed for if you loose focus the outcome turns out the same either way…
Posted by Jared on 25. 02. 2009 in Poker Advice, Tournament Play. And 1 Comment .
JJ on February 26, 2009 6:34 pm
Hard luck Jared, its hard to stay focused for so long. You gotta admire the pros playing hour after hour. Nice blog!