online stalemate & live bubble

haven't been playing much lately at all. over the past week I did a grand total of 3 SNGs, winning the first, a $5 o/8, then having 2 sick knockouts - shoved 99 into AA on a 7-high flop, then slowplayed a flopped set against a turned broadway gutshot. nice.

got a rare opportunity to play a live tourney 2 weekends ago, a $50 buyin at Harrahs. I enjoy live play so much better than online. last time i played a live tourney, i ended up agreeing to a 5-way chop at final table with me as the technical "winner" since I had a slight chip lead at that point. This was another final table, which isn't overwhelmingly impressive considering only 28 people started, but I made it to the last 4, and 3 spots were paid. At this point there was one big chip leader and the rest of us were all relatively even. And it had taken so long to get to that point that the blinds were insane compared to stack size, with the 3 of us between 20-40k and blinds 4k/8k.

fortunately, once it got 4-handed, one player suggested a bubble pay, everybody put in $20 and whoever went out 4th would basically walk away with a $10 profit for their efforts.

of course, bubble boy was me. I was amazingly card-dead throughout the tournament. I picked up KK once, AQ 3 times, 10-10 once, 99 once, and AJ on my last hand, and that was it for premium starting hands through the entire 5-hour excursion. I was in the BB for 8 of my last 24k, button shoved his 30k-ish stack, so of course there's no way for me to fold, and he had AQ. gg me. oh well, at least with the bubble pay I didn't lose anything.

couple key hands along the way -

3rd hand I pick up AQ, raise & get one caller. Flop AAx. I considered slowplay but at this stage thought i'd be better off leading out, hoping villain would think i would check an ace and just throwing out a c-bet, but after a little bit of thought he folded.

little bit later had 9-2 in BB, flop came 227. I bet & got 2 callers. turn was another 7 - actually a scary card for me but in hindsight this is probably where i should've slowplayed - there were 2 flush draws out now, and when i bet, everybody folded. If i check and somebody hits a flush, I could've taken a few more chips.

I made 2 mistakes along the way - with blinds 1k/2k and I had about 28k left, which was avg at the time, I limped 22 utg. a tight player raised and another called, so now i'm getting little more than 3-1 to call, but that would cost me almost 1/4 of my stack. I should've just open-mucked, but now was kinda stuck with calling, of course missed the flop.

2 hands later pick up a-4 offsuit in SB and complete after couple callers. flop came KK3 & it checked around. Turn was a 10 & 2nd club on board & it checked to me. for some reason i thought i had Ac4c, not Ac4s as it actually was, so thinking i was on nut flush draw, bet about 2/3 pot, got one fold and a call. river was a brick. I now had 2 choices - give up and be crippled, or shove and probably bust because if villain was slowplaying a king obviously he calls, and I felt if he hit the 10 he'd call also. i opted to just give it up, villain did have a 10 but told me if i went all in on the river he would've folded. so that left me with 11k and in awful shape.

fortunately, desperation works sometimes - pick up K8 offsuit in BB, folds to this monstrosity of a woman in SB who limps, I shove & she instacalls with 10J offsuit lol. thanks for the double up. couple hands later pick up AK sooooted otb & shove hoping one of the blinds would have a decent hand and call thinking i was just stealing, but they both folded. i didnt pick up another hand from that point until the AJ that I busted with. There were couple hands where I had K10 off, QJ off, and thought about shoving but I just felt like my best chance was to be ultra-patient and let others drop, and not risk it on a very borderline hand. Unfortunately a couple of shorties doubled up along the way, which helped land me in 4th when it was over.

but, cant complain about back to back top 5 finishes in my last 2 live tourneys. now if i could just get into a big one and do that...