Party Million and an explanation

The explanation:

It was eight days from, and is now five days from: the World Cup. It begins Friday. Rock on.


I finished something like 780th in the Party Million Gtd today. It was the first week of their guarantee, and God was the tournament awesome. In the first two levels people were going broke with one pair left and right. I found myself in situations where I could have lost a significant number of chips early, but really lost just the minimum on most all of them. I got up to 9k shortly before the end of the first hour as I won a game of chicken, then QQ won a nice pot (the only big pair all tournament), but gave a bit back when I wasn't able to hit at the end of the hour and went to the first break with 7500 in chips (start with 5000)

Hour two started rockily. I had to switch computers briefly as the laptop's connection was on the fritz, so I don't have those hand histories as I write this out. I know I dropped down to 4000 chips at 150/300 after AK and AQ completely whiffed and I got runner runnered in a battle of the blinds. I flopped a non-nut straight on a two spade flop and pushed behind a bet and a call to get a good chunk back and found spots to get to 9k again as my first table broke.

For whatever reason, I amped up my aggression at the new table. I'm looking over the hand histories, and I don't see any real reason for it other than it worked. I got to 13k when KQ > KJ, then to 18k in a battle of the blinds when I intended to put a play on my opponent, made a hand and extracted the maximum from it, and headed to the 2nd break with that count.

The next hour I really ramped up my aggression. I took a nice pot with eights, then pushed a shorty in with AT on a Q high flop (he folded) before I made what I believe was my lone error of the tournament. I raised in MP with KQo, and the small blind pushed. Without taking a whole lot of time to do math or anything, I called. I was against AKo and folded. It was a silly mistake that cost me 6000 in chips. Had I taken the time to do the math I would have realized that I was only getting about 1.8-1. It was close, but a fold was correct. I did not get bailed out by the deck.

In the space of two hands I went from 19k to 25k to 18k, but I got back to 23k with some more aggressive play in a button/blind battle. I built that to 36k when I raised preflop with KQ and got called by the BB. On the KJx flop, he potbet, and I called. The turn was a blank and he bet the same amount and I called again. The river was a brick that went check/check - he had AJ.

I blinded down for a bit - I folded AQo behind two pushes getting only about 1.8-1 that would have made two pair against J9 and KK. It was the right fold, but damn did I want that pot. I doubled up the same guy from the AK/KQ hand when I raised with JTo and he pushed again. This time I took my time, was getting about 2.2-1, which I felt was good enough to call with JT. Unfortunately, I was again chasing 3 outs as he had TT, and could not catch up. That dropped me to 22k, then I was forced to fold AK on a jack high flop, which put me down to 14k.

I doubled up a few hands later when AK held over KJ. I very nearly got very, very mad when the flop came JJx, but runner runner clubs to my Ac gave me the hand. We were all in preflop, and that would have been nasty. From there I slowly worked my way back up to 33k when the wheels fell off. In the span of 10 minutes of play I took 3 beats to take me from 33k to out. I'll leave how it happened to the imagination, but I'll say it thusly: I'll lose all three of those hands one half of one percent of the time. The bustout was particularly brutal as 99 lost to A6 to the ace on the river.

While it SUCKS that I took 3 beats in a row to bust, I'm very happy that I played well. I am upset at myself for my one mistake and I am unfortunately aware that I would have still been in the tournament had I not made that mistake. However, this continues my trend of not getting bailed out by the deck when I fuck up. It also continues my trend of running godawful. I played 3 hours, got one big pair and still managed to outlast 80% of the field. That's pretty damn good.

I'll say it again: eventually it will pass. Please. SOON.