Never give up

I didn't find time to play with the code to the blog over the weekend, so I'll either do it on Thursday or wait until the weekend.

Anyway, there's a saying in poker, "a chip and a chair", meaning that's all you need to win. It's perfectly true, no matter how bad a situation in a tournament can be, never quit it.

Point in question. $2 STT. Blinds at 30/60, and I'm down to T1190. I decide to make a play at the pot on the button with 6-3o when the only caller is the cutoff (who was bitching about his A-Q being outdrawn by J-T on the previous hand, so he could easily be steaming - he's down to less than me as a result). I raise to 180, blinds fold and cutoff calls. I've also got a note on the cutoff that he seems a bit fishy. Flop comes Q-9-2 and I push for 1010. He calls his last 890 with Q-5 (making his complaining about calling raises with junk rather hypocritical), and IGNH. 120 left, I fold in the next hand and the blinds go to 50/100. Game over? Nope.

A couple of hands later I get 7-7 and push. Three callers, I hit a set (cracking A-A in the process), up to 480. Muck next hand, I'm the big blind with K-4. Three callers, but I wait to push. Flop is K-J-3, I push 380 into a 400 pot and nobody takes me on. 780 now. I then find rockets in the small blind. Only the cutoff called, I made it 3xBB and the cutoff calls again. I push my last 480 and he folds. Up to 1180.

I fold the next hand and then find kings. I limp in EP and then there's a raise and reraise before it comes back to me. I call all-in and see A-K and 10-10. Kings hold up and I'm at 3640 and comfortable again. Two hands later I double through the original tilting fish in an A-Q vs. J-J race, up to 6380, a third of the chips in play. I knock him out two hands later when I have kings (again), making it 500 to go preflop (blinds now 100/200), he flat calls, and then on a K-9-5 flop with two hearts, he removes any need for me to slowplay or milk as he pushes with Qh3h. My set holds up, and all of a sudden I have over 10K in chips.

I go on to finish second, getting as high as 13,690 at one point but cocking up the three handed and heads-up. Limping with 3-8 in the small blind and then pushing on a T-5-2 board but walking into rockets knocked me down to 11K, I fail to knockout a shortstack with A-9 against A-8 when he spikes his 8, then I lose to the same guy three hands into the heads-up, as he refused to fold his nut-straight when a third diamond hit on the turn [Qs 3d Td Ad], his K-J of spades holding up against my mighty 8-4 off (one was a diamond, I had outs). The moral of the story is - don't push with junk and get called.