On Saturday night, we had our monthly variety tournament, a $50 Deeper Stack. 12k in starting chips, longer levels, a few extra levels added, and antes. These are the most popular of our variety tournaments, and this week we had 42 players.
Because of the size of the field, I would usually be Dead Money in this tournament, and I fully expected to extend my streak to 0-14. Instead, I finished in 3rd place for $360.
Normally, this would be a happy post, telling how I skillfully maneuvered through the field. But not this time. I should have won this one. It was mine to lose, and I did. Not because of some two-outer on the River, or because of some AA vs KK cold deck. It's much worse than that.
I lost because I screwed up.
I started the Final Table with an average stack. But a new player, who had been playing rather tight & passive, decided to dump his chips to me. I raised with AJd, and the Flop was Jd Td 9d. He lead out on the Flop, and I went All-In. He thought for a moment, and called with K7c, a two-way straight draw and overcard. He missed is 8-outer, and I have the one of the bigger stacks at the table.
By the time we got to the money (5 got paid), I was the Big Stack at the table. There was 504k chips in play, and I had around 150k or 30% of the chips.
There was a lady at the table, Cindy, who was having a very good night. She had the dominant stack throughout the night, mostly because she was hitting a lot of hands. Her stack had dwindled down to an average stack by the time her and I got involved with two separate hands.
My #1 rule when it comes to Big Stack tournament poker is: "The worst thing that you can do with a Big Stack is Call. You can Bet, Raise, or Fold. But don't Call off your stack." When I'm dealing the Final Tables, I see it happen regularly with newer players.
But that's exactly what I did in two hands with Cindy. I raised preflop in both, and she called. The rest of the hand, I just check/called her down, mostly because I couldn't believe she kept hitting. The first hand, she flopped a Set, and rivered Quads. The second hand, she had Top Pair, and I had 2nd Pair (Q J x). Most of the bets that I called were up to 20k. Overall, I called off 100k for no good reason. It was stupid to get over involved in these hands. All I had to do was fold, and wait for a better spot.
At this point, I almost finished 5th. My AQ ran into AK, but I spiked a Q on the Flop. I hung around for a while, but never got my Big Stack back. Finally, when we were 3-handed, I pushed All-In on the Button with 98o. The BB (Big Country) thought for a bit, and finally called with QJs. I flopped a 9, but a Q on the Turn sent my away in 3rd place. Cindy finished in 2nd for $550, and Big Country took it down for $850.
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