anomaly16

I played a $10+1 knockout MTT last night and came 4th of 410 entrants to win $295 which helps my online numbers for the month greatly. Went out with the best hand as a larger stack who had been aggressive and had already been caught raising from the button with J3o shoved over my BB. With less than 10BB left I called with K9o and his K3o hit a 3 to knock me out.

Today I was at the casino for the office poker tournament (£30+3 freezeout) with 64 players. I'd gone quite prepared to lose the tourney and play some cash again, but the casino has started a £25/hr charge for each cash table which seems to have killed all the action :( I played pretty steady for most of the tournament hovering around average chips. My only pair bigger than TT all day was a single AA on the button that could only steal the blinds around level 3. Closing in on the bubble I dropped some chips and was forced into shoving 99 after a raise with my last 12BB. The tourney organiser was 300 chips shorter than me and had to call with 77. The original raiser folded and my 99 held up and gave me a 36.1k stack to take to the final table (around 5th in chips).

The blinds were rising brutally with antes but with a stolen pot and a fold to my BB I stayed around 35k till the first players went out. I was forced to call a shortstack allin (3k into a 15k pot with Q8 which spiked an 8 and beat QJ) which propelled me up to around 50-60k. Blinds had risen to 8000/4000 + 800 ante and into the last 4 I managed to steal some blinds from my button to still have 50k (8BB) before my last hand. The chip leader (180k?) had been making quite a few raises showing 72 earlier and opened from UTG against my BB. Finding KQc I shoved and he called with KJo. The flop brought a J and it was all over for a win of £190.

Its a bit brutal to have lost both times with a better Kx against Kx, but better to have it happen for 4th rather than at the bubble so very pleased with my game. Perhaps my biggest mistake of the night was...

bit loose not very good player who likes Ax (20k) in CO raises 2.4k into pot of 2.8k blinds&antes

me (14k) on BB with 44 thinks about going over the top but folds

ok player in SB (16k) calls 2.4k

Flop : K44

SB shoves KQ
CO calls KT
me in BB cries on the inside :(:(

My numbers above aren't exact but the blinds were around 1200/600 + 200, 27ish players left, so our stacks didn't give the odds to setmine, but perhaps this is cashplay thinking? Partly based on this, my instinct was that a call wasn't the right move especially with only 12BB. Shoving was an option but if villain called I'd probably be the underdog in a race for my tournament life as well as there being another player yet to act. I'm still not sure which option I prefer - I think fold, call or push could all be reasonable and I should probably run some ICM calculations to compare. I think the way it played out just makes it seem disappointing and a worse decision than it might have been.

Net gain : +£134 (£190 - £33 - £3(parking) - £20 (op membership renewal))

Thats my first win in an Office Poker torunament in quite a few attempts (other than the team event) so very pleased to rack up my first points in the league and bring a positive end to the month.