Wednesday, March 05, 2008

Still running strong in the Bodonkey

I finished fifth in the Bodog Blogger Tourney last night, maintaining my record of finishing in decent position more times than not. I even stayed in third place on the leaderboard, which is quite a feat for me. Now, if I can just keep the streak going and earn more leaderboard points in the weeks to come, I might actually have a shot at the TOC in June. And if a donkey like me can do this well, everyone should take a crack at this thing.

I stood a good chance at finishing even higher last night, but I made what I think was a bad play that decimated my stack at the final table. It went like this:

Blinds: 1,000/2,000/200
Five players
I was on the button and picked up Ac Kh. My stack was 33,776.
UTG folded.
23skidoo, with 32,061 in his stack, raised to 8,000.

I knew I was going to play this hand, but how? Our stacks were virtually even. His raise of 4XBB could mean almost anything - A-X, medium to high pair, the Hammer. Rather than push preflop, I thought I would just double his bet, to try to get him to think that I had a very strong hand and wanted a call, thus causing him to fold. I raised to 16,000. The blinds folded, but Brian called.

The flop came 3c Jh 2c.

No pair for me, and only a vague backdoor straight or flush draw. If Brian had AJ, A2 or A3, he just caught two pair. If he had a pair of anything else, he was still ahead of me. Even if he had the Hammer, he just paired his deuce and took the lead.

Brian pushed. I felt like I was behind, although he could have missed the flop like I did and was just hoping to push me off the hand or race me for the pot. But I felt like I could come back with the chips I would have left, so I folded.

Looking back, I feel like I should have just pushed over the top preflop and taken my chances with my AK. He might have folded, and if he called I would have got to see all five board cards.

I welcome any feedback on this hand. I do feel like I am developing a better feel for the game, but still have a long way to go in many areas.

A few hands later, I picked up JJ but ran it into emptyman's AT which ended up Aces full of Tens. Congrats to Drizztdj for winning it all last night.

See you Tuesday at the next Bodonkey!

2 comments:

emptyman said...

Was fun playing against you for the first time last night. I hope you can get your bankroll going for some BBT events. The more blonkeys, the merrier!

BrainMc said...

Nice run. Keep it up. I'm feeling another final table for myself coming next week. I hope to see you there.