Chasing Chris Ferguson

I may be the nit - or the lice - or both, but the reward for all the time and frustration spent is pretty to close to the sum of nothing. Yet…it’s the project I chose, the project I’ve committed myself to for a year, just to see if I can do it. This little NL (Nit Lice) has known for a very long time how brutal the game of poker can be. It’s an ongoing war with the mind. I’ve said for many, many years that poker isn’t about cards, or being lucky, or having a bankroll, or your position at the table, or your game selection (yet that is part of the sum), but the whole of it is about the mind. How you handle it is the bottom line. Some days it’s damn tough to handle.

This one was pretty rough. I played in a $3+30c NLH tourney, field of 1355 players. I picked up some amazing cards, like A-A, and won some nice pots. Easy street? Not! I got snapped off a few big hands and before you know it, I thought I was going to be out early. One off the button I picked up 5-5 and raised it to $500. I was really just trying to pick up the pot as there were two callers in front of me, we were at $25-50. The button called and so did the BB. Flop was 8-7-5. It was checked to me, I bet about half of my stack (I think I had around $1200 at that point). Both players called me. The turn brought another 5. BINGO! A bet to me and I went all-in and the player behind called, so did the bettor.

The river was ? - hell if I know. I won a really nice pot and then some idiot typed in the chat, “nice suck out with the case card.” The BB had 7-7 and he wasn’t the one that typed the nonsense in the chat. Another player typed back, “Yeah, like you’d fold a set.”

I picked up a few more pots and then just off the button again, I picked up 10D-8D. Someone raised in front of me, I called $400 (I think), and it ended up with three of us in the pot. The flop was 5D-6D-7. The BB went all in for about 16K, the other played called short of that and I thought about it for about 5 whole seconds. My thought was “Screw it! I need to pick up some chips or get the hell out of dodge.”

I called, knowing I would only have around $2K left if I didn’t hit. GAMBOL! I hit a diamond on the river, I was close to chip leader at that point - not that that means ‘jack’ but I was pumped up to around 40K in a heartbeat. I picked up some phenomenal cards, pocket fives about 80 more times, I gave up even putting any $$ in the pot with them unless I was back by the button or blind position…hit nothing with them after the QUAD BINGO! I picked up Q-Q four times, winning every time with them except once (three times didn’t go to showdown but went to the turn and I won nice chunks of chips each time) and the one loss was when I ran into A-A. They cost me about $12K because I couldn’t just pitch them…the board played badly for me to get off the hand also, plus I had a lot of chips and the Aces had been flirting with a bunch of raising, losing, winning, losing…yeah…sometimes you have to give the dummy credit for a hand but in this case I had a hand too.

A-J. I picked it up about 300 times, I never won a pot with it and gave it up on the flop or turn every time except once when I was the aggressor and it was suited - that venture cost me about $7K. After the first five times of getting involved in skirmishes with it, I started pitching it. I saved a lot of dinero. It really looked good - especially in position - but it was a real gutterball.

Then as tournaments go and blinds go up, I went dead. In almost all tournaments, I seem to reach a spot where I hit the $$ but I can’t pick up a hand after that, and that’s what happened here. I waited patiently, my chip stack dwindled, the action was crazy and I knew that no matter what move I made, I was going to get a call. After 7-4, 8-2, 5-3, Q-2 for four or five rounds, I decided to make a move with A-8 off, 2nd UTG. I was really hoping I would get no callers and just pick up the blinds and antes - plus it was the best hand I’d seen in awhile.

There were two big stacks at my table - 107956 and 216378 - one player had 77036, but everyone else was fairly close to me, I had 28406. The antes were 400, blinds were 2K-4K.

I pushed. Unfortunately two other players jumped right in. The player with 107956K had AC-KC, the other player had 24625K and a pair of sixes. I finished this tournament in 24th place out of 1355 players and collected $14.23. I was bummed. I really felt I had a shot at making decent money but ended up nowhere.

About an hour later I played in a 7Card Stud 8 or better tournament and made the $ too, won about 80c. It was one of those devastating ones where people just keep drawing for low and end up making a high that sucks the air out of your brain (yeah…I feel like I have a lot of air in there at times).

I played a Razz tournament where I had so much paint and started with so many big pairs, that I barely got involved in a hand unless I was the high card. It’s as if the Card Fairy is out there smirking, “You can never get away from me. I’ll paint and pair you in Razz and give you Razz cards in Holdem games…take that you, Bitch!”

I still feel compelled to play tournaments, even tho I’ve had some decent turns playing the micro 7Card Stud 8 or Better games. I’m very undecided right now about whether or not to take a break from tournament play and just go live. But PokerStars always has a seat open for this little NL and I’m going back.

This entry was posted on Friday, February 1st, 2008 at 2:37 pm and is filed under Uncategorized.