This was a slightly less than break-even day that should have been profitable. I can’t say I wasn’t warned after failing to rid myself of a trio of A2 opponents in my first two tournaments. Despite my repeatedly firing three barrels carefully crafted to represent top pair or better, each of them stubbornly clung to their bottom pair even after the river had brought them squadoosh. Not the best of omens.
Following those tournaments, I watched a video in which Daniel Negreanu wore a lavender t-shirt embroidered with the motto “Such Is Life” in what today would be termed a dreamy little woke font.
My spirits lifted, I rebounded to reach the final table of the Deep and Slow tournament that starts you at 5K in chips, allows for an immediate rebuy that a surprising amount of players eschew, putting them at a 50% disadvantage from the get go, and then an add-on after 16 minutes. If you follow the program, your stack is so Deep(!) and the blinds so Slow(!) that it’s practically a mortal sin not to money–usually 15 places–in this one.
Money I did, and arrived at the final table in a comfortable fourth place. From there, I progressed to a final six that was tightly balanced with everyone holding 80-120K in chips. It required nearly half an hour to loosen the knot. A player not named PickettPocket pulled most of the strings, accruing around 450K to my 200 when our head-to-head battle commenced.
At first, I ceded a bit more ground, then steadily ate away at his stack until I had a slight advantage. Not to be deterred, he clawed enough back to hold a 60K chip lead when the final hand played out.
On the button, I had K9c. He made the pot bet we had bilaterlally agreed upon as the standard pre-flop raise. The suited king emboldened me. I reraised. When he merely called, I saw no need for him to trap me as I had committed more than a third of my stack to the hand and thus concluded my king was so far so good.
The flop came 8-4-2. It fit the range I gave him better than it did mine, but not by much. He bet out, clearly wanting me to fold. I shoved. He called. My read was spot on. He showed an off-suit Q10.
Unfortunately, Arng, the Norse god of random number generators was unimpressed by my prescience and Fed-exed a queen on the turn, forcing me to settle for second place and just over 1M in chips.
Second from top was followed by second from bottom in a disastrous Galaktic Storm in which I busted out to yet another A2 that thought it should commit all its chips pre-flop against an AQ just a few hands into the tournament.
I retired to the ring games, breaking even at two six-handed tables whose players dispersed so quickly that I felt the need to sniff my armpits and pop in a breath mint. At last, I found myself nine-handed again with 1.5M to open in 5K/10K blinds.
Sadly, the galaktic storm conjured by Arng had followed me. When my 89d nestled into a 4-8-9 flop, I pot bet, unaware of the dark clouds gathering. Holding top two, the call from a short stack felt like it was backed by two overcards.
When a ten came on the turn, I set my trap with a check. It drew a bet. I shoved. The desired call revealed a K10.
For the second time on the day I had made the correct read in a pivotal hand. For some reason, however, Arng still had it in for me. A second ten came on the river, producing trips to kill my two pair.
Reduced to 1.1M, I soldiered on through the heavy rain that wore me down to around 880K. Again, I should have known that Arng, whose hammer cannot be named Mjolnir as it seems to have no concern at all for worthiness, was waiting when the clouds briefly parted.
Not being the religious sort, though, I raised a suited KQ. Arng laid a hand on the shoulder of the lone caller as the flop came K-7-10. First to act, my opponent bet into my top pair. I raised. Following a call and a deuce that was for once on the day irrelevant, Arng’s devout worshipper bet again.
I ran through the hand, furiously considering the possibilities in the ridiculously short time Replay allows for actual thought. Despite the pressure, I decided my king was good, that this person was most likely trying to represent a drawing hand as the goods, and shoved. Again, my opponent called, revealing an 89 which Arng sadistically gifted a six for the straight on the river.
In the end, three perfect reads had cost me around two million chips. Mark Twain once said, “The man who does not read holds no advantage over the one who can’t,” to which Arng had cheerily replied, “Hold my beer.”
