$50 tourney recap
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This was only my second live tourney since October and I felt I played well until (of course) the last hand. We started with 5K chips, 10/20 blinds and 30 minute levels. It was a pretty good structure and I really liked my chances. I was sitting to the left of a couple guys who were sort of tricky, so I had a pretty good seat.

I caught a couple hands early (AA, KK), but didn’t get too many chips with them. I didn’t mind too much because I was picking up information on my opponents, so I really didn’t want to be in too many hands anyway. Here are the significant hands I can remember:

I think we were at the 15/30 level and I picked up KQs in the CO. MP2 limped (he’d been limping a lot), I raised to 130, he called. Flop was ATx rainbow. He checked, I c-bet something like 175 and he called. Turn was a blank. He checked, I checked. River was a Queen, he bet 400. I thought this was a suspicious bet since he was basically representing an Ace. But if he was representing an Ace, then he thought I didn’t have one and I couldn’t understand why he’d bet 3/4 the pot in that situation. I called, I think he mucked something like 77 and I took it down.

50/100 level, it’s folded to the CO (same guy from previous hand) who raises to 275. BU folds, I wake up with AA and re-raise to 1000 straight. I wasn’t sure what to do there because I knew he was probably raising light, but I felt we were too deep to get cute and just call. He folded.

75/150 level, I get AQs UTG (we’re now 8-handed, I think). I raise to 450, everyone folds to SB who calls (same dude from previous two hands). Flop wasQQ2 rainbow. SB checked to me and I decided to make a larger c-bet than normal since I figured he’d interpret that as weakness. I bet 600, he c/r-ed to 1700 and I just called. I figured if I just called, he might put me on TT or 99 and try to steal it if the turn was a good bluffing card for him. I called. Turn was a Two, giving me Queens full. He checked, I checked. River was a blank, he checked, I bet 2K, he folded saying, “I know you didn’t have a Queen. Smells like Ten Ten to me.”

A couple times in there, I’d made top pair from the BB, bet out and had to fold to a raise. I also chopped a pot with AQ vs. AQ (same guy).

100/200 level, I misplayed AK against the guy mentioned in the sentence above and went home. Here’s how I screwed it up: I was UTG with AKo and accidentally raised to 450 (I’d forgotten the blinds had gone up). A tight player in MP1 (we’re still 8-handed) re-raises to 1650 total. Everyone folds to me. I have about 5600 left, which is a good number to shove with AK in this spot. I think about his raise and realize it seems a little scared. I put him on AK, JJ, TT, maybe QQ. I figured I had just enough left that he might fold JJ or TT (and probably AK), and I’d be racing against QQ if he called. Before the hand, my M was about 20, but we’d be adding an ante in about 15 minutes, which meant my M was about to drop to 10. I decided to shove and I felt pretty good about it when he didn’t insta-call. But he ended up calling with KK, and I didn’t improve.

My mistake was not in the way I played the hand, but in who I played the hand against (I will not use “whom” in a poker post!). Dude had a lot of chips, but only because he’d been a card rack for a while. He had gotten KK against AK earlier, I’m pretty sure he flopped a straight against me when I had top pair, he also flopped a better top pair against me when I flopped top pair another time. He hadn’t shown any junk and he’d been playing very tight. Against a player like this, a re-raise to 4x my bet means, “I have a big hand! Let’s get as many chips in there as we can, ok?!” What’s worse is that I had a great read on everyone at my table, so I could’ve played small ball and continued to chip up. I guess my excuse is that I hadn’t played a live, deep stack tourney in about five months.

So, I played for about 3.5 hours and finished something like 15/19. I’m pretty disappointed that I busted misplaying AK that badly. That’s pretty out of character for me.