Chasing Chris Ferguson

It has been one long time since I’ve been here.  I have played, it’s been an endless series of win a few pennies, lose a dollar, gain a dollar and lose two.  My BR, at one time was as high as $124 or $127, who can remember?  Then down the tubes, a bit at a time, until I hit around $12 or so.  I’ve played mainly tournaments, micro buy-in, and it’s been a struggle.

I’ve started to compile a list of the tournaments I’ve played in and the ones I’ve placed in the money in.  I don’t know why, just out of curiosity I suppose.  Certainly it doesn’t matter to anyone but me.

The live games I’ve played in have mainly been 7 card stud 8 or better.  I just happen to like the game and people play it so badly that I feel I really do have a chance to win $$ there.  Problem is that I haven’t settled in and played enough of it to do justice to my game.

Tournament play, I’ve played some of everything.  My favorite tournaments are the NLH and the 7 card stud 8 or better.  I’ve had three major tournament cashes - hey, they’re major for micro limit.  One was 7 card stud, 1st place.  One was LH, 4th place.  One was just a few days ago in NLH, 4th place.  My BR is at $138.

I took an ugly beat in the NLH one when we got down to four handed.  I was chip leader off and on through most of this tourney and I admit to having caught well and picked up hands.  You can’t make 4th place out of 1162 players without making hands.

I picked up K-K in the BB - had 704,178 in chips, the antes were 1,600, blinds were 8-16K.  The pot was raised 32,00 more for a total of 48,000.  Of course I went “WHOPEEE!”

I raised it 72,000 more to a total of 120,000, and got called.  The flop was 9d-Jd-7s.  I bet 106,000 and was raised 111,104 to 217,014 and my opponent was all-in.  I called (naturally).  The turn was the 2d, the river was the As.  I wanted to puke. My opponent held A-9.
At these blind levels there’s not much play left in your game other than all-in.  We coasted thru a few orbits and chips exchanged stacks.  I pitched.  One player at our table had put the ‘raise-itis’ on every other hand, sometimes every hand, and I was having a very difficult time believing he had anything - and blinds come around pretty damn fast at four handed.  I picked up Q-9D and made it $100K to go, the raiser-itis guy made it another $200K all-in.  If I called and didn’t hit, I would be short chips, if I hit (and maybe I didn’t have to, I might have him beat) he would be down to a very short stack and probably out when the blinds hit.  I called.  So did the guy that busted my K-K.

The flop brought a 9 and I went all-in.  The K-K buster folded.  Mr. Raiser-itis showed J-J and I didn’t help.

I made it another few orbits and finally picked 10-8 off to stack off my last 80K on.  Yeah…I know.  But in a short handed game, everything is subject to change.  The only poor move I made - I feel anyway - is the Q-9.  Not the raise pre-flop, but calling the reraise pre-flop.  I thought about it…then my finger hit the ‘call’ button.

I won $127.83 for my efforts.  I was so tired I thought my face was going to fall off.  It was 6 a.m.

I’ll be sticking mostly to micro tourneys on PokerStars - look for me there, I play under PokerWorks.

This entry was posted on Friday, February 29th, 2008 at 4:10 am and is filed under Uncategorized.