To be fair, I think that bad play was the most relevant influence on why I did so badly. I know a lot of people like to tell the bad beat stories, myself included, but looking back on what my feeble brain can recall, I realize that it was my bad play that probably hurt me the most.
An obvious example of this happened in a 700 player $20 tournament. I had been doing quite well through most of the tournament, and actually sat in first place for a short period of time, but for most of the tournament I was around 20th position. Quite comfortably in the money, as this tournament paid the top 70 players. I had a lot of early success playing suited-connectors, but I didn't know when it was time to tighten up and play more traditional hands.
I ended up finishing 74th, and the hand that killed me was a perfect example of why you have to be aware of the situation when you're playing in every hand. I had 7-8 suited, and a player in middle position raised about 4 times the BB. Being in the BB, I often defend my blinds with mediocre hands, and did just that here. The flop was 2-4-10, all Spades, and I decided to bet out at it by making a more than pot-sized bet to try and scare of a higher flush draw, and my opponent called.
The turn is a blank, and with so much invested in the pot, and having my opponent out-chipped, I decide to just push all-in to take the pot down right now, not wanting him to catch some miracle full-house or catch a spade on the river to make a higher flush. My chips are barely in the middle when my opponent calls, flips over A-K of spades for the higher flush, and all of a sudden I went from being comfortably in the money to being very short-stacked. All because I defended my blind with a marginal hand.
The next part seems very debatable, but I folded pocket Aces preflop. I know, most people think I'm nuts, but hear me out.
This time playing a 90 player tournament, top 9 pay, and we're down to the final 15. I'm the tournament leader, with a healthy margin between myself and 2nd place, who's also at my table. On the button, I'm dealt AA and immediately thinking "JACKPOT!" until the first player, a short-stack, pushes all-in. Then the next player with considerably more chips raises all-in. THEN (and this is what made this so difficult) the 2nd place player comes over the top and goes all-in too!
2nd place has about 75% of my stack, the other player has 50%, and who cares about the short stack. As I mentioned earlier, I folded. I had a buddy who used to always say "The Lord hates a coward" when justifying his bad calls, and if this is true, then the Lord certainly hates me. I folded because I knew (or at least I thought) that in a hand with 3 other players, pocket Aces wasn't even the favorite to win the hand.
In theory, I was correct. Against hands like K-Q, 8-9 and 4-5 all different suited hands, pocket Aces has only a 44% chance of winning the hand, but what this theory doesn't take into consideration is that who in their right mind is pushing all-in with any of those hands, unless they are severely cripple in chips?
The actual cards in play were much different. 2nd place had KK, and he didn't want to mess around, so that's why he tried (successfully) to force me out of the pot. The middle-stack before him had A-Q, and again he was trying to isolate himself with the short-stack to get the kill. The short stack had 99, which is more than good enough from that position to push all-in.
Calculating the odds, I would have been a 59% favorite to win the hand, even against 4 other players, as in this situation I would have had everybody drawing to very few outs. the KK and 99 had only 17% chance of winning, basically needing to spike a set to win. A-Q was in by far the worst shape, at only 5%.
The flop was Q-7-6, so KK was still the best hand, and my Aces would be in great shape. The turn was another Q, and the hand that was in the worst shape preflop was now ahead of everyone, and would have left me drawing to 2 cards left in the deck. The river, just to add insult to the pocket kings, was a 9.
The short-stack more than tripled-up, winning the main pot with a full-house. The A-Q takes down the rest of the pot with a set of Queens, and pocket KK loses a massive portion of his chips, and doesn't make the money.
So am I justified in making that lay-down? Was folding pocket Aces a smart decision based on proximity to making the money, and the fact that I was already in 1st place. Most people would say it was a bad fold, and I agree that it was only massive luck that would have made me lose that hand, but why would I want to risk to much when I knew all I had to do was just coast into the money and pick and choose my battles?
Poker is a game of skill, luck and instinct, and I just wasn't feeling good about the hand. Probably not a good enough reason to fold by most people's standards, but I felt pretty good about it when I realized I would have lost a lot of money on the hand. I finished 8th in this one, when 2 hands of KK lost to A-Q. "How bout them Cowboys! Woooooooooooo!"
Then I played 3 live, 8 player tournaments, and could do no wrong for most of the night. I finished in 2nd, 1st and was cruising along nicely in the 3rd one when I ran into a situation i couldn't get away from. I had A-Q, and the flop was Q-Q-9. Turn and river were blanks, but my opponent had Q-9 for the flopped boat. I guess I should have raised preflop, but I was trying to be sneaky, hoping to catch a flop just like that one. That's poker.
