Sunday Majors

After I got busted out of the $1,000 tourney last night I decided to come back to my hotel room and play in the big Sunday tourneys on PartyPoker and PokerStars. I lost a big pot pretty early on Stars in a coin-flip situation, but I liked my play. It didn't take long until I found myself all-in with AQ vs. AA.... Again. That seems to be my trend lately. So I got knocked out of that tourney is like 4,700th place, good showing. I played very well I thought in the Party tournament but I just couldn't win any races. I lost a race and two 40/60 situations against small stack all ins during the 2nd hour of play. I kept playing well and taking down a lot of pots until about halfway through the 3rd hour when an interesting hand came up.

The blinds were 400/800 and I was on a smallish stack of 11,000 chips. I was in the SB with AQ suited and a short stack in middle position pushes all in for around 5,000 chips. A pretty large stack (around 26,000) calls the all in right behind him. It folds to me and I have a good situation here. It is fairly likely that the short stack is on a medium strength hand, A9 - AQ, or JJ or lower. He also could have AK or QQ, but it is unlikely AA or KK because he would most likely just raise to like 2,000 if he held a huge pair. It is also fairly likely that the big stack holds a medium strength hand as well, something like AQ - A 10 or JJ or lower. If he held AK or QQ he would likely re-raise so he would be able to isolate the small stack. It is possible that he could smooth call with AA or KK and if that is the case then I am in real trouble. If it so happens that the short stack has AK or QQ or better then I can still remain about the same in chips as long as I beat the big stack because the side pot will be about 10,000 in chips. I weight my options and decide that it is way to good of a situation to let go of, so I push all in. If I win the main pot I will have around 28,000 in chips, if I just win the side pot I will still have around 10,000 in chips. The big stack doesn't think long before calling the 6,000 more chips and he flips over AJ off suit. The short stack flips over 55 and it turns out that I made the right move. If I can hit an Ace or Queen and avoid a Jack and 5 then I will be sitting very well. And as long as I avoid a Jack altogether then I will still have the same chip stack as when the hand started. The flop comes 7 9 10 rainbow, then turn comes 8 and the big stack makes his Jack high straight. The river blanks and I am out of the tournament in like 600th place. I thought this hand was very interesting to analyze and I defiantly made the correct play.

I don't think I'll be playing much in the next week or so. I am visiting a friend in Germany till Saturday and then flying home to the states so I can get back to all that homework I missed.