Another Day, Another Flame out

Got dumped in 34th spot of the WWDN when I pushed my rivered two pair into my opponent’s rivered straight. It was a heads up pot, I was big blind and she limped from UTG. Was really hard to put her on that hand (7-5s) but at that point, the pot was bigger than my stack so there was no getting away from this one.

Watching the blogger tourneys, I’m really wondering if you can get anywhere in those things without catching cards? The field is usually really strong and aggressive and every pot is hotly contested. The big pots at my table usually involved two players with really good hands (two pair vs Set or Trips with Ace kicker vs. Trips with K kicker) or big confrontations pre-flop between big pairs. My biggest hands were a pair of 6 in the big blind and KJs. No big pairs, no big ace-x, simply rags.

The fact of the matter is, if I intend on competing at the higher levels of Tournament Poker (doubtful), these situation will surely be the norm. I guess I really need to add the re-steal to my repertoire of moves in tournament situations. There were definitely quite a few opportunities where I felt my opponents were trying to pull a fast one on me but I just couldn’t pull the trigger and come over the top. At this point, it’s only a matter of confidence and I’m hoping that once I’m able to pull it off successfully, I’ll be able to go down that path many times again. I’ve already gotten over the barrier of raising the blinds with absolute garbage, this should be the next step.

Loaded some cash games afterwards, started well, finished disastrously. Some bad beats in there, though more bad play by myself. I think I found the next thing I need to work on, making the big lay downs. Some of them are not even that big, you know you’re beat but you still call that extra bet with your two pair or set when the guy obviously has a straight or a flush. My reads are right more often than not, and yet, I still hesitate to act on them from time to time. Must. Fix. This

If anything, this move down in limits has allowed me to see more of the big picture. I’m still making mistakes but the costs are less. At least I now have an idea of what to focus on. I can finally make some progress in my game that had, truthfully, stagnated for far too long.