[mrmuzeman]

The 5th hour


After the 15 minute break I returned to blinds again of 100/200 but now with a 25 ante. This was now more in stealing and get busy territory. With an ante from each player your basically getting an extra big blind or so of money in each pot which makes stealing pre-flop a lot more of an attractive proposition for sure. So there was to be 550 chips in every pot before anything had even happened.

I only played 1 hand this hour near the end as I turned totally card dead picking up offsuit crap by offsuit crap followed by much much better hands such as J2o and 83s (JOKE).

I raised in early position with AQo. Not a play I’m overly keen on with AQ in early position but as I said stealing the blinds was now more attractive and it was happening more often that not when somebody raised pre-flop. I got 1 caller from the button (the guy who I folded the AK to when I missed just above). The flop came pleasing to me - A 8 3 with 2 spades if memory serves correctly. A good result here for me and I’m happy to bet here. The pot contained 2150 and I honestly cannot remember if I bet 1.5K or 2K here. It was one of the other though and both are strong bets. To my surprise I was re-raised a further 3K, so a bet of either 4.5K or 5K by the player. Big surprise to me as I thought he was going to fold there. I looked down at my somewhat dwindling stack and realised I only had about 3.5K left. If I were to play it would be all in for 3.5K and of course he would call the 500 more guaranteed. So this was a decision for my whole tournament.

As it was such a very important decision I took some time to think about this. I think a lot of people would just hump their money in there with top pair, good kicker as it is a good hand granted but I wanted to think about it as to what exactly my opponent might have. I figured there was basically so little chance of it being a bluff there was no point thinking about it. He could see my stack and the raise normal and not overly huge or anything so it looks a legitimate raise to me. Looking at it from his point of view id represented totally good strength both pre flop and on the flop and surely he must think there is a huge chance I have paired that Ace. Therefore presumably he has a hand that doesn’t mind taking that pair of Aces on. I figured his most likely holding was AK, which had me crippled and going out of the tournament. Other possible holdings were AQ (like me) or AJ with the spade flush draw. KK or QQ is possible but I thought he’d probably re-raise pre flop with a big pair like that. Also that’s a very brave move with QQ or KK with an Ace on board and he’d almost certainly just call my bet on the flop.

I basically figured him for the Ace with a King, Queen or Jack kicker. I would like to think AJ would be folded as it should be after a raise, and AQ was more unlikely as it was what I had. He raised really quite quickly after I bet and quite keenly and I could just envisage him turning over AK and me out on my arse and at the bar with my tail between my legs if I called. I remember back to an online tournament I played previously where I had made the EXACT same play as this and called and gone out to an AK. With 2K of chips left it would have been a call regardless as I would have been pot committed but with 3.5K I thought I could still come back due to the kind blind structure. So I folded in slight inward disgust.

As he tossed in his cards (he didn’t just push them towards the dealer) I was very pleased to see the underside of one of them, and it was a King (not a King of spades so no flush draw). So surely this meant he either had AK or KK. One I was out, the other I had him. I caught up with the guy the next day to ask him and he said it was one of those 2 hands but wouldn’t tell me which. Having seen poker players and how they like to boast with their egos I’m 90% sure his lack of releasing that information meant I had made a good laydown.