Wow, I think that’s the new record for title length. I don’t want to go on and rant all the time about getting sucked out on, after all nobody wants to hear the same “Bad beat” stories over and over again, but hey, this is my blog…so here it comes:

I played the usual 17ET tourney at FTP and was running good…there weren’t all that many hands to remember, but I picked up bluffs, played a solid game, so nothing to cry about. What sucks though is that I can’t win THE hand – when it counts. Two critical hands (at least IMO) and two times I can’t win the thing:

1. I’m sitting in late position and look down at 4-4, not the best hand in the world, but a small pair in LP, folded to me, so I pop it up to 3xBB…two callers (Cutoff + Button)…flop comes down 4-K-6…now I’m thinking…yatzee…bottom trips, but I doubt that someone would have limped with K-K at this point…that and the fact that I got both players covered by a long-shot makes the decision easy: All-In…both call…CU shows 10-Q (wtf?) and button shows Q-Q…at least I’ll only have to dodge a one outer (Q) and two perfect running cards…sure enough the latter happens…J on the turn…Ace on the river…
Summary: I would have busted two players and as a side effect would have been up to over 10k (around 1.5x the average at that point)…

2. The second critical hand was just before the bubble. I’m in the BB (800 + 100Ante already in the pot) and look down at A-Q…considering my chipstack of < 3k it's time to test the water...Cutoff+2 raises to 2k...it's folded to me...what to do what to do...I read his move as a at least semi-steal as he's a big stack (> 10k) and probably hopes to pick up the blinds + antes easily (2.1k)…so I push…he reluctantly calls…with Q-J…totally dominated…as the flop comes down 9-Q-K I’m in a half-happy/half-worried mood and yell something along the lines of “no ten, no ten, no ten” at the screen…to no avail…the river kills me…

Even my opponent can feel my pain and apologizes…I say “It’s all good…” and leave. After all I didn’t do anything wrong, maybe I could have sneaked my way into the money (which starts really small…remember that this is a 1$ tourney, so 54th-46th is 1.76$), but as mentioned above isn’t really worth it without a (at least half-) decent stack. So this was the chance to double up right before the bubble when (at least some) players tend to stall, but it wasn’t to be. Nontheless a fun tourney again with 2h of ups and downs (mostly ups)…

In related news: At least play at the cash tables went fairly well, so nothing to dwell on.. 🙂