| Last night was the end of season 2 of the Twitter Poker Tour (#TPT). I was not able to play as many of these events as I would have liked, but did finish well in the last two. I also played a couple of other online tournaments at the same time last night. Once again my faith in online poker has been tested. The first tournament was a razz tournament. For those of you that don't know razz is 7-card stud low only with 1-2-3-4-5 being the best low. I played this more for fun then to make money. 52 players started and I ended up around 20th. I also played the 50k on Poker Stars. I had aces twice, kings 3 times and A-K many times. Aces won once and kings only won once. I was four card flushed 3 times. I once was put all in after raising with A-K clubs by KK and of course I flopped the nut flush and won. I play a lot of live poker and this stuff just doesn't happen that often. Anyway I made it to 1400 place a little short of the money when my kings lost to A-8. Then it was time for the #TPT. I enjoy this tournament very much. It has less players and prize money, but the quality of play is so much higher. I played very tight for the first hour and stayed around even in chips. Then in the second hour I played looser on a tight table and accumlated some chips. I made the final table and had a pretty good run of cards to move up to chip leader with 4 players left. Then it happened! LOL! I had kings and with two players limped I raised it up quite a bit hoping just to take it there. Player moved all-in and I called. He had A-2 off and flop came A-2-Q and I lost. No big deal. I still had plenty of chips. The very next hand, I am dealt QQ. Wow I am thinking. This is great. People are going to think I am on tilt, I go all-in hoping for a call and a chance to double up. I get the call from the player that just beat me and he has KK and we both have a diamond. He turns a straight and rivers a four card flush. I was never ahead at any point in the hand. I finish 4th. Did I play these hands wrong? Maybe. I am ok with the first all-in call. He doesn't have me covered. I should have played the queens slower, because maybe I could have bet him out with the ace on the flop, but maybe not! I could have gotten away after the turn, for sure. I wanted the double up and ended up out instead. I think I would have played it the same next time anyway! 4th place was good for $19, so I ended up about even for the day. Now I want to talk about tilt. Tilt is when you lose a hand that you either thought you should have won or a hand that you miss played to lose. It causes you to play differently then you normally would. An example is someone losing a big pot and then going all-in on the next hand. I see a lot of tilt in bar poker games. I can honestly say that I have rarely ever gone on tilt. I think part of it is that I don't play many big buy-in tournaments and the other part is you take so many bad beats playing bar poker that you become ablivious to it. I usually try and use tilt or the perception of tilt to my advantage. |
Friday, April 10, 2009
#TPT
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I thought you played your last 2 TPT hands exactly how you were supposed to, certainly how I would have if I was in your seat.
ReplyDeleteOddly enough it was the fact that you had done multiple squeeze-type raises from the BB when we were 4-handed that lead to my A-2 against your KK, all-in, pre-flop.
When the short-stack on the button limped, I deliberately completed in the SB with my A-2 (which is the clear favorite hand, something like 80% of the time 4-handed), hoping that you would try to squeeze again, so I could shove over you. My intent was to simply re-steal your steal attempt. We were both big stacks and I didn't expect you to want to get involved for all your (or my) chips at that stage of the tourney. I was quite surprised when you called, practically stunned to see KK and then completely speechless when the flop came A-2-Q...
That last hand with your QQ against my KK was pure online poker craziness and a really hard way to go out. I was really expecting the heads-up to be you and I in a pitched battle for the win. But once I got your chips from those two hands the final 3 was pretty uneventful.
Anyway, you played the final table really well and used your position on me to very good effect, pretty much the whole time, given that I was the chip leader for basically the entire second half of the tourney, until we got down to 4-handed. Looking forward to more clashes in season 3! :)
-Mac Zealot (aka. Foggy89 on FullTilt)
You played a good game. At the end, at the final table, it is a toss up about going all in. Some feel you should wait until you are one of the remaining three before risking your chips or your tournament life.. I think it depends on many factors including your chip stack relative to the other chip stacks. Some times you play the best hand pre-flop, going all in and you lose. Nature of the beast. Placing is good but I like first place. I am not piggish I hope. But as a practical matter, first is always more fun.
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