50/50 5uck Up
Friday, July 13, 2007
I deal with risk management every day. When you maintain over 1 billion in assets under management, just at the local level, risk becomes damn near paramount. So you would think on occasion I would mirror that mantra on the felt. Last night was not the case.
Things started pristine. I jumped onrine in time to try and satellite into the 50/50 on Full Tilt. For those who don't know by now, that's the $50,000 guarantee with a $50 buy-in. The satellite I played paid entries to the top 15, while giving some cash back to 16th place. As we neared the bubble I was 2nd in chips and easily coasted into the 50/50.
The start of the tourney foreshadowed what was to come for me. Thinking the tourney started at 10pm, I was in the kitchen making a sandwich when I heard an alert/beep noting I had a hand waiting. The tourney started at 9:30pm. I was unprepared and my mind was not in the right place. Doh! Queue my demise...
Midway into the 1st hour of play I managed to double up when my AA miraculously held up vs. a guy with KK and a flush draw. I'm still amazed that happened. However, not too long after, but before the 1st break, I fonkeyed my way right out of the tourney. I didn't assess the risk I was taking in a hand vs. the reward it would bring. I just bled my chips onto the table and to a guy who was more than happy to take them, all the while mocking my craptastic play.
To be honest, I don't think I played the hand too bad based on my read and what I felt the guy had, but my read was entirely wrong and once the hand played out, I looked like a dumb ass. I put myself in a situation where, on the river, if I fold it is probably a bad play and if I call it is probably a bad play. That's not a good situation to put yourself in. That's the risk you take when you have a gut feeling and react to it strongly.
The hand was basically my button vs. the small blind where I limped with 44 and he raised 3x pushing the BB out. I put him on Ace Big (AK,AQ,AJ) and felt I could pwn his chips if I hit a set. I called his raise and the flop came down 2 3 5 rainbow. Not a bad flop for me at all, especially if I put my opponent on Ace Big. I still have my pair, with one over, as well as the open ended straight draw. Interestingly, if I put my opponent on Ace Big, one of my outs is gone in his Ace, but if an Ace hits, he might be hard pressed to get away from his top pair, even with 4 cards to a straight on the board. I think he would have a hard time putting me on a 4 there.
The turn brought an off suit 8 I think and this time I checked. He bet and I think this is where I made my mistake. His bet was a decent sized bet, but it screamed I want this pot now. I took that as weakness and put a substantial amount of chips in the pot to put the pressure on him and hopefully take the pot right there. Still, even if he called and I was behind, I had outs. The river brought a blank for me and he bet out putting me all-in. At this point I had 800 chips left and there was probably 7000+ in the pot. If I fold I'm down to 800 with the average at 4,000 and the chip leader well over 10,000. If I call and lose, I'm obviously out. I chose to go with my read and call rather than leave myself an up hill battle with less than 1k in chips. He flipped over an over pair to the board, T T, and that was the end of me. A 50/50 5uck Up on my part.
So I think I just wrote a whole post about a random ass hand early in a tournament that really doesn't amount to much in the grand scheme of things. However, I spent so much time last night letting this hand get stuck in my head, I think I needed to let it out. I took a big risk early in a tournament with a small pair that I just didn't need to take. Especially in the 50/50 where I've read numerous times that you can gradually get yourself into the groove in the first 2 hours and still make a nice run.
Lesson learned...risk assessed...and now hopefully manageable.
Until next time, may the felt be with you.
posted by TripJax @ 1:30 PM,
3 Comments:
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At 11:49 AM,
Julius_Goat said...
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What was your action on the flop?
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At 2:01 PM,
TripJax said...
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Good point...I meant to write that and missed it.
I bet and I think he 2x raised me. In hindsight, it feels like a suck me in raise, but I just wasn't getting that during the hand. Given what I know, I think if I push there he still calls me with his TT, but it would have been a tougher call. I also think it wouldn't looked as bad on my part had I done that there. Just my thoughts. That's mainly because my river move just looked so amateurish. -
At 6:51 PM,
Wolverine Fan said...
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Trip, thanks for playing today and congratulations on an excellent showing. Close, but.........
Again, thanks for playing. I had a really fun time.
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