Yay! I cashed!

After Katie’s $7,000 win, her urgings to me to play the $50,000 guaranteed tourney on the site with the awful players seemed like good advice.   Katie, I, and 735 others sat down this past Sunday and played no limit Hold’em.   Throughout the tournament we were never at the same table, but instant messaged constantly, talking about the general mood of the players, and when the blinds were getting too expensive to just sit back and wait for cards.  For the most of the tourney our stacks were almost exactly the same.

When I doubled up, she doubled up.  When I was cold decked, so was she.  Since I’m an impulsive NL player, she generally held the line.  "It’s not time to push in yet, don’t panic and bet all your chips," she repeated.  I dutifully obeyed.

Hours later we had outlasted all but 61 players.  The top 60 get paid, with the 60th getting $200.  "I’m not going to be the bubble guy." I promised her, referring to the poor shmuck who gets put out right before the prizes kick in.  At that moment, I was dealt K3o in the small blind.  A calling station with a big stack was dealt a pair of 8’s.  From watching him all night, I knew he wouldn’t fold, and the two of us saw the flop with me just calling the big blind.

The board came 5-3-5, all different suits, and I checked.  "Big Dumb Stack" made a small, underpot sized bet, and I called.  I figured he didn’t have a 5 either and was ecstatic to see anything at all hit his hand.  On the turn came my king.  I checked, and true to my read of his hand he checked too.  On the river came an 8, and I bet out confidently, having thought I had lured him by checking my king.  Calling Station raised me, and I pushed.  He pushed, and showed me that he’d hit his full house by catching one of only two cards, an eight, that could have won him the pot.  Long odds for him, but it worked.

Lucky for me, because the hand had taken so long to play, a bunch of people had gone out in the meantime.  I ended up going out 55th and pocketing my $200.

There’s a couple of observations about this hand that I wanted to put into words:

• There’s no way I can win this hand, except by not playing it.  With someone who simply won’t fold his cards for any reason, there’s no way I could have played that hand to keep him from seeing that final 8 on the river.  Had the first three cards come out as AAA, he would have stayed in with his full house.  I ‘make’ the most money in that hand by folding.
• What was I thinking playing K3o like that on the bubble?  I could have just tossed it.
• I clearly should have bet when my king hit.  I could have put all my money in, and he would have too.  And then he would have been getting terrible odds to draw to 2 out of 46 cards.

That was fun, and now I’m hunting for other guaranteed tourneys to prowl.