An Exercise in Being Card Dead

Last nights Tour stop at Crazy Poker was not an enjoyable experience. Our starting chips were the standard 1500 but the blind structure was horrible. It increased with leaps and bounds as we were at 100/200 blinds at the first break.

This is all well and good if you have hands that will hold up in an all-in fest but when that's not the case, your left to the luck of the draw.

My only hands of any note were all against the same player. Tournament regular aintsotuff was seated on my left and we clashed early and often. When we were alone in the blinds I was able to push him off a hand early in the tournament. He commented that he felt like he had, been played. He had, but in order to diffuse him, so I could do it again, I commented that I had pocket 10's. I don't remember my exact hand but I think it was Ace garbage that never connected.

A few orbits later we were again heads up in the blinds. This time I actually did have 10's and I took it down when the flop came 9 high. He commented that he was laying down J's. I think I could have come up with a better lie than that but I did show the 10's this time.

These seemed to be the only pots I could win until I finally (after being blinded down to a about 9x the big blind) got pocket K's. Unfortunately no one wanted to play and I only won the blinds.

The next time around I was again heads up in the blinds. I had 98 off this time and only completed the big blind. With a flop of 9 high I bet the pot and aintsotuff pushed back at me, putting me all in. He had been catching some big cards and big draws to build a very nice stack and I knew he was sick of me taking his blinds when I had the opportunity. I went ahead and called for the double up. He had caught middle pair on that hand.

This gave me a slightly bigger than average stack but I managed to squander half of it away in one orbit when I rec. a succession of middle pocket pairs and busted draws. I had to release all of my hands by the turn, but with preflop raises and called bets it didn't take much to put me back down again.

Heads up, yet again, with 43s aintsotuff pushed back hard preflop and I had to release the hand. Three hands later I was dealt 99 and decided I was going to play for all of my chips. I raised preflop and aintsotuff reraised. It was folded to me and I pushed. He called and showed his Hilton Sisters. I couldn't suck out and was done in 30th. Only 77 players ponied up for this event and it looks like none of the point leaders managed to cash in this one. That means my 2nd place standing should still be safe.

On a somber note this may be the end of my poker playing for a while. I had some unavoidable financial obligations that are causing me to liquidate my poker accounts. I really don't want to quit playing. I have done well since starting two plus years ago and I am on track to hopefully make some big tournaments this year. I may be asking for some help with the bankroll but I'm not sure how to go about it. I'm going to have to think about this for a few days. If anyone has any suggestions feel free to comment or email me at (lifesagrind at yahoo dot com).