Spewing chips @ Final Table

Played a few tournaments on Monday and Tuesday evening. Not a lot happened exciting on Monday though I did have a few cashes (nothing huge).

Tuesday night I made the final table of an Omaha Hi-Lo event. Was a small tournament with less than 100 players. But first place paid roughly $900 so a win would be good. In fact with 6 players left I had nearly 50% of the chips in play. Unfortunately a combination of bad cards and horrible play by yours truly led to a spewing of chips of epic proportions.

Calling big raises from short stacks then folding. Raising marginal hands then having to fold to reraises. Being indecisive on the rare occassions when I did hit the flop. All of these strategies were a part of my chip bleeding. Just couldn't seem to get in the flow at all and continued to lose a lot of chips. Finally I was the short stack when we were 3 handed and pushed on the button with KQQ8 only to get reraised from the small blind. Knew I was behind but at that point I was pot committed with 60% of my chips in the pot. Called all in and SB sbowed AAxx and it held. Ended up 3rd for $300+. I played very well for the three hours or so until the final table but totally botched that table.

Also had a decent stack in the Stars $25k guarantee ($27.50 entry) with about 400 left. I had about 12k in chips (abt 20% more than avg stack size) when I opened raised to 600 with 99 from middle position(100/200/25 blind level). I got one call from 2 behind me and flop came 9TJ with 2 clubs giving me a set of 9s. I lead into the pot for 1250 and other player instantly shoves all in for ~6200. I thought about this for a while and actually used up my time bank. His range here is pretty wide and includes all of the following (I hadn't been involved in any pots with this player but had seem him mixing it up a bit):

• AJ, KJ, QJ for top pair big kicker (this is possible but would be an overplay on his part obv)
• AT, KT of clubs or two other random clubs (I convinced my self that this was the most likely holding given the insta-overshove)
• KQ or 78 (these are in his range with the KQ more likely than the 78)
• JT for 2 pair (pretty likely holding)
• I think JJ or TT reraises me preflop the way the table was going. I had gotten my chips when I had raised in late position with KK and button shoved all-in with TT and I called obv and my hand held up. A lot of overvaluing of pocket pairs pre flop at this level.

So as I said I used my bank and decided to call as I am ahead of all of these holding except 78-KQ for the made str8. He flips KQ obv and I am down to 4.5k. I think I call in that spot again. In these huge tournaments you have to get a lot of chips to go deep and this was a spot to get a lot of chips. Even if I am behind I have 5 outs twice to boat up and take down the huge pot. Couple of orbits later I three bet a late position raiser with 9T diamonds. He shoved me all-in and I called as I was pot committed. He flipped AK which is abt the best I could hope for but I whiffed all the way and was out.

Did play a nice .50/1.00 PLO session of abt 600 hands and won 2 buy ins over that period. Sometimes I wonder why I play tournaments at all with my cash game stats. But the lure of the big score keeps me and everybody else coming back I guess.