The Pru Fiasco

OK - I played a couple of Saturday nights ago at my good friend Pru's (We will refer to him as Pru as to not out my friend and possibly hurt his professional reputation).

Anyway, I like Pru's tourneys. They are usually short handed, good blind structure, and a good amount of play. And you get 2 hours to rebuy. Works for me.

So, I get there late because I am running all over the house trying to find something for one of the kids. The life of a guy who likes to play poker and has a family to care for as well. What are you going to do?

Anyway, I get to the table about 15 minutes or so into the match. The seating assignments are as follows (in relation to my seat, going clockwise):

(1) Chip - pretty good player who thinks he is even better than he really is. I have played with him a couple of times, and he won one of those tourneys and final tabled the other. I finished 3rd in both of those tourneys and cashed as well. The first tourney was a large one. It was played in a shootout format, where you had to finish in the top 2 of your table to advance to the final table. The first one, he made the final table as the overwhelming chip leader, after busting two players on the last hand and actually accumulating his entire table's chips to bring to the final table. He was the first one out at the final table. I actually got a bad beat where I flopped broadway in 3-way action and got outdrawn on a runner-runner flush. Oh well. The second tourney was smaller, and chip was playing good that night and catching cards. So he knows what he is doing. And when I got there, he already had about 60% more chips that what we started with, and I was down about two orbits worth of blinds, so he had done some damage early already.

(2) Simon - very solid player, and pretty tight. It is really hard to pry chips away from Simon once he gets a hold of them, so the best course of action with him is to try and not tangle with him too much. He has won Pru's tourneys in the past, so he is a threat.

(3) Pru - host, and he wins this tourney about every other time he has it. He plays random cards all of the time, and up until tonight he was known as "seven-deuce", mainly because of the many times he has busted me with that very hand. I am pretty sure that there has been pocket Aces versus 7-2 at least once where he flopped two pair on me and I never improved. But this helps him get paid off when he has the goods, and he works his magic very well. Obviously, a big time threat.

(4) Greg - probably the weakest player at the table, but very capable of winning (as he has in the past). He sometimes plays bad hands thinking they may be good (A-rag, K-rag). But it is fairly easy to get him off a non-monster hand depending on the texture on the board.

What is so great about this setup is that by far the most aggressive of the players at the table is usually Pru. While Chip is good, he likes to limp a lot and rarely re-raises. He does a lot of min-raising as well. So I am in good position here. Especially now that I am pretty much converting to an aggressive style myself.

Of course, I get my obligatory bad hand out of the way early. I don't remember specifics, except that Chip calls one of my early raises when I have something like A9 suited, and the flop comes something like Q97, and I bet, Chip min-raises me, and I put him on a bluff and was wrong (flips over something like Q8 off). I rebuy, and then go on a tear.

Well, not before Pru got me again. His new new nickname is now QJ. That is because Pru called a pretty decent sized flop bet with QJ when the flop was ATx. I, of course, hold KT. The turn is a K, I am feeling really good about my hand, and get Pru all-in with his nut-straight. Back down to about $12. Yippee.

But I did not change my approach. I was pretty damn aggressive throughout the match. I work my stack all the way up to $60 (which is $10 more than what we started with plus my rebuy - which totaled $50). The blinds we still only $0.50/$1.00, so I had plenty of play. Greg ended up rebuying, only to get knocked out when Chip calls an all-in with K-8 and runner, runners a straight (Greg had something like AT). So we are four handed, and Pru and I get tangled up again. This time, I get him all-in pre-flop when he was short-stacked again when I held KK. He had an Ace with a low kicker, and for once an Ace stayed in the deck and I win with KK versus an Ace. Now we are 3-handed and I am in good shape.

Then I go on a spiral of dismal proportions. I get cooler after cooler. I get up against Chip with Top pair Queen kicker only to be beat by his Top Pair King kicker. Or I hit Two Pair only to have someone hit their inconspicous trips. I finally go broke when I get all-in with a decent Ace versus K8, only for Chip to spike an 8 on the river. It was painful - but when does finishing on the bubble not hurt? It especially hurt because I rebought and still finished on the bubble.

BUT - despite this I know that the way I played was correct. One of these days I will not get sucked out on nearly as much in the same tourney. I will also suck out on someone else as well in that same tournament. And I will win again. I had gotten burned out on NLHE last year, and I focused my attention away from the game for awhile. Well, I think the time away has helped, because I feel like I am playing better than ever. We shall see if my feeling translates to cashes soon.

Steak