heartbreaker

So I played the 1k daily on spadeclub thursday night. I played what I think is without question the single best tournament I have ever played, and came in 2nd. and to go out the way i did is just such a heartbreaking thing because as I've mentioned before, I've never won one. I've won some freerolls, but I don't count those.

In this one, I made some plays that even the best pro would have had to be impressed with. unfortunately can't get HH from spadeclub, so here is best I can re-create:

at FT, i think 7 handed at this point, blinds 2000/4000 with antes. i'm 5th in chips and in BB with 6-7 off. utg minraises. I did not necessarily read that as being super-strong because this guy had been pretty aggressive. with a couple of callers I was getting over 5-1, so I begrudgingly made the call. Flop comes 10-rag-rag. nothing for me. But I make up my mind that if villain shows any sign of weakness i'm gonna try to get a little crazy and check-raise him. i check, utg bets 10k into 20+k pot. 99 times out of 100 i just lay down here and write off the 8k lost. But instead i reach down & grab my nuts (not literally) and throw out 50k. villain folds.

HUGE hand not long after. I pick up 77. shorty at the table shoves, I re-shove trying to isolate, and get called by this clown who got stupidly lucky to get to this point. They show A9off (shorty) and KQoff (clown). Amazingly, my 7s hold, and i bust both and take a nice chip lead.

Next big play was against the #2 chipleader. don't remember the exact cards but I held J10, called a pf raise, checkraised the flop and got called, we both checked the turn. on the river I fired a bet of 120k into the roughly 170k pot, with nothing. Board had 3 spades and couple of straight possibilities, and I knew AQ-type hand missed and even a high pair might have to fold on that board, and I had no way to win the big pot otherwise, so I made the bet and took it down.

Now these might not seem like such a big deal to a lot of people, but they are the kind of moves that I am normally afraid to make, which is one of the biggest holes in my game. I was very proud of myself for making these plays. (not the 7s, that was pretty standard, just the other 2.)

got down to heads up with a slight chip lead, which rapidly disappeared when I tried making another move and villain stood up to me and I had to lay it down. This left me at about a 9-5 chip deficit. Next hand I pick up A7 sooooooooted. I decide to shove to make it look like tilt/desperation after losing a big pot the hand before, hoping to get called by a lesser hand. Sure enough, villain calls me with A5 and promptly spikes a 5 on the flop to bust me.

This one might actually be the toughest one I've ever had. I've taken much worse beats for sure, but to know how great I played, even down to the last hand, and fall short yet again, this time on a 3-outer, is really crushing. When I think about the fact that I don't think I made a single mistake in the entire tourney, and I probably can't play any better than I did here, and still didn't win, makes me seriously think I might need to just quit playing.

at least till tonight. :)



later I pulled a similarly-ballsy move on a draw-heavy board against the