Thursday's game

There's a Thursday game that's pretty local. When I played (for the first time) last month it has 70 players and I got the to the final table, second in chips, only to get knocked out in 7th.

After that game I told my friends that the tournament was beatable. I figured that if I played once a month I'd make a profit.
I figured that 2/3 of the time I'd get a bad beat that sent me home, but 1/3 of the time I'd get to the final table.

Last week was my second crack at the game. I got bad cards all night. The one time I had a good hand the guy on my right had trip 10's. He checked the river since I was firing at the pot each time, but I picked up that he had me so I didn't re-raise, thereby stopping the action. He undoubtedly would have re-raised me and it would have been a tough fold.

One hand I limped in with A/10 (normally I don't play it early on, but there were few callers so I decided to limp in) and the flop was A/A/5. I raised and only the aggressive woman to my right (who was playing all sorts of crap) called.
The turn was a Queen and I went all-in.
She called, showing an A/J.
Doh! My A/10 was dominated.
Luckily the river was a King, counterfeiting her Jack high, so we split the pot.

The cards continued to be lousy. There were a lot of people in the pot so I folded a K/10 pre-flop that would have given me the nut full house on the turn. The pot ended up being a monster too... and totally loading up the guy directly on my left.

I folded my way down to 420 in chips (from a thousand). It was my turn to cut the cards, so I cut them shallow, as that seems lucky to me. I'm not big on lucky, but it really gets under one of my friend's skin when I cut shallow (maybe 12 cards), so it's something I'd occasionally do to annoy him.
Well, that cut gave me A/A!
The BB was 80, and there was about 200 in the pot, and people were too aggressive, so I went all-in before the flop knowing I'd get one or two calls. Only the small blind called and he had with K/J off suit. When we revealed cards the guy on my right told me that he had folded K/10. Sweet! I couldn't have asked for a better situation.

The flop was K/10/5. (I bet the guy to my right was grinding his teeth)
The turn was a Queen.
The river was an Ace, giving him the Ace high straight.

So at that I was knocked out of the tournament, early.

It happens. I'm at peace with that loss. I made the correct play.

Last month I made some stupid newbie errors, like folding when I was the BB and was only checked to, and mucking my live cards when I was dealer. I made no such errors this time. Also, there wasn't a single move that I would have redone had had a chance to ponder it an additional ten minutes. That is, given my read of the players, pot, cards, and position, I feel like I consistently made the best moves for that situation.

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For the past month I've been tutoring the friend that I go to that tournament with. He told me that the tournament was full of tight players, and I corrected him, saying that they were too loose. He was the one playing too loose.
I told him that playing only top ten hands in that game would get him most of the way to the final table. I gave him some advice on how/when to raise, the value of table image, when to go prospecting, and some tips on catching tells.
I explained to him big tell that I caught most of the players exhibiting. He really impressed me with some good questions, and what especially impressed me was that he printed out some of the emails I sent so he could re-read them.

When I was kicked out I went to his table and saw that he was the chip leader at the table. I was proud of him. It was a big difference from last month where he's limp in too much and get blinded off.

Well, the schmuck went on to win the entire 80 player tournament! Technically he was chip leader when they agreed to split the 1st, 2nd, & 3rd place prize money three ways, but that still puts him in first place.
I'm so proud of the guy.

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I'm not sure when I'll hit that big tournament next. In a little bit my friend will host his own big annual tournament, and my budget is keeping me to one tournament per month. I think there were around 30 players last year. It was my first tournament after I started reading about poker. I ended up getting third place... quite a contrast to the 180 player tournament I was in before, when I went out on hand #5.

Here's the deal I've made with myself about tournaments. I'm pretty sure that in the long run I can come out ahead on that semi-local 70-80 player game. I set aside enough cash to play a game per month for the next year. If I earn more than what I have set aside, that's play money that I can use to go in more games. So if I set aside $300 for a dozen $25 tournaments, and win $450 for first place, that puts me $150 over breaking even for the year. So if I want to play an additional 5 games with that $150 I can. I don't think I'd play that many games though. Once per month seems good.

For now I'm looking forward to my friend's tournament. He'll be moving out of state in a couple months so it'll probably be the last of his annual tournaments. He's a good poker buddy, and I'll be sorry to see him go.