So I was inspired by a Cardrunners video to start doing a brief recap of each night's session as a way to evaluate my play while it's fresh in my mind.
Tonight started off brutal as it has for the last couple of months. A flush draw got there on the river leaving me short and my AQ vs. TT ran out QxxxT...weeee. I was okay after that and picked up some really nice pots playing the players tendencies. Then a massive hand occurred where I flopped a straight with J8 in the big blind with a straight flush draw. The pot was only 450 and a guy shoved for 2700 and gets flatted by the button. I shove and the button calls with a king high flush draw! He spikes a gut shot J on the turn (3 outer!) and knocks us both out. I kind of laugh that one off and then play a hand what I feel was very optimal with QT. With the board reading T4x44, I check to induce a bluff or possible chop with another T. He shoves, I call, he shows A4! At this point a really start steaming. It had been like this for a while now and I literally started breathing like a pregnant woman trying to stay calm.
I had one more tournament still going and it was a $36 180 man turbo on Stars. I rarely play these (maybe 5 times total) because the variance was so high. But I was trying to play under my roll tonight and figured I would give it a shot since the payout to buy-in ratio is really high. I won a couple of pots and eventually I calmed down and managed not to tilt-shove my way out. Eventually it got down to about 40 people and as a super short stack I was able to win a crucial flip with 66 vs. KJ. I double up to 10bb and then pick up AA the next hand and build up to $25K. Down to 30 and I win a huge flip with AK vs. QQ and now I'm up to $45K at the 1k/2k level which is huge for this tournament.
I then make a bad play when we are down to 3 tables left I believe. A new player arrives at the table and he min raises the cut off and it folds to me in the BB with Ah8h. Believe it or not, I can often times find a fold here and my instincts were screaming to fold since I did not know how the guy played yet. But I called because of odds, I had a decent stack and the fact that I could have the best hand. The flop is 832 rainbow. I check to evaluate his play and he bets over 1/2 his stack to $16K into a $5k pot. My initial reaction was that people in these tournaments sometimes make these really weird overbet plays with big hands to make it look like they are bluffing even though no one really ever bluffs like this. BUT where I went wrong was not trusting my initial instinct and convincing myself that he had overcards or a hand like AK and he was just trying to take down the pot. I mean there were no draws present, so what is he protecting. So I shove to put him all in and he flips up KK. I guess he assumed that if I had a PP that I would stack off. Well, I hit the 8 and stacked off. So it's not the worst thing in the world, but the main thing is that my instincts are crazy good and I've been so emotional and anxious to win lately that I'm not trusting them because I'm forcing wins.
Well, the good news was that I didn't berate myself and just stayed calm and focused. I ended up taking 2nd for $1,188 which was a much needed win that felt really good. I would have loved to take it down, but I felt like I played well overall.
So this recap was longer than expected. I plan on making them shorter. But evaluating the A8 hand was good because it reminds me to trust my gut even if there is no logical explanation. It doesn't have to be logical at the moment, it just has to feel right.
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