Mookie Bubble

I was pretty happy with my play in the MOOKIE last night. There were 3 critical hands IMO that made me finish 10th out of 98. I hated being the bubble boy, but to be honest, I was not playing like we were on the bubble. Sometimes I do and tighten "the hell up". But last night I was playing for the win so needed to try to build my chips while we were playing 5 handed.

Critical Hand #1: We all know bloggers love to steal. With antes on the board, stealing becomes essential to all good poker players late in a tournament (Note: I am not equating "bloggers" with "good poker players"... ). OMGitsPokerFool (who I do think is a good player) puts a standard 3x bet from the button while I'm in the small blind. He has almost 2x the chipstack I do and I'm getting fairly low. I attempt a resteal with 45sooooted by shoving all in. A true "steal attempt" has to fold. I got busted though as OMGitsPokerFool shows AQoff and I prepare to leave the tournament. 5 comes on the flop and no improvement for him and I double up. This gave me enough chips to get back into the rotation for steals.

Critical Hand #2: We are playing 5 handed with 10 players left in the tournament. Joanne1111 shoves with a short stack and I decide to call for about 40% of my stack with 77. She shows JJ and I don't improve. I am now ranked 8 out of 10, where I could have been 3rd if I won a coin flip. Looking back, it was a bad call, but I figured her range to be pretty wide with 500/1000 blinds and antes and she only had about 8,000 in front of her. I thought it would be a coin flip and I figured it was worth the risk. Good hand to her.

Critical Hand #3: I'm in the sb and everyone folds around to me. I have 88. We are 5 handed still and I figure any pocket pair has got to be good. I have about 14,000 in chips left and heffmike is in the bb with about 30,000+ in chips. I raise 4x bb and heffmike comes over me all in. I have to put him on a pretty wide range considering I'm only showing 10,000 chips left. I call and he tables 99. Again, it was bad to consider flipping here, I just get tired of blinds firing back at you every time you raise them. I'm sure heffmike agrees. Best case I had to dodge 2 overs. I go home bubble boy.

Oh well. I'm getting a feel for these players again. It's really been over a year since I played consistently in blogger tournaments. I'm having a great time. If your not playing, you should be. Next tournament is Sunday. You can check the leaderboard to see where everyone is. There are still lots of good players with -0- points. Start now and you aren't really behind.

See you in the next one. Stay patient.....