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Another $50 tourney: My first MTT win

I just got back, so I’m pretty beat. I’ll be posting a re-cap tomorrow or later this weekend. There were 32 people, I took first and won $450. I got very lucky at the Final Table. I think I ultimately won it with aggression. Ironically, I’m thinking more about hands that I misplayed than anything else.

This is going to be a long re-cap. Right when I got home from the tourney, I wrote a one-line description of all the hands I thought were significant. There are something like 30 lines. Here we go:

Early on in the first level (25/25), I got AA. I raised to 100 and everyone folded. I was bummed, but it was good to see the bullets. I hadn’t seen them in a while.

Not much else happened at my first table. I stole the blinds one other time, but mostly just sat back and enjoyed the show. We had three people eliminated in the first two levels. That’s pretty crazy considering we all started with 160 Big Blinds. I guess these people were in a hurry to get somewhere.

At my second table, I was lucky enough to have some very tight players on my left. Typically, I prefer tight on my left, loose on my right. That way, I’m less worried about someone coming over the top of a raise, or even calling it. I can also steal blinds pretty liberally. Also, I get position on loose players and that means I get to collect their chips by isolating them and making them pay for playing crummy hands.

After I’d been at the second table for about 45 minutes, I picked up AA UTG+1. The blinds were 150/300 and I raised it to 800 because it just felt right. A guy in late position moved in for about 3000 more (I knew he had a hand because he is ultra-tight) and the small blind started debating whether to call his all-in. I should’ve done some acting to get him to call, but I kind of thought he’d call on his own. Unfortunately, he folded and my AA beat the all-in player’s AK… the other guy folded AK also.

A bit later, I had KJo in late-middle position. I looked down at my cards, figured they were good enough to raise (because I’d been raising and taking it with Q2o, J5o, and junk like that for a while) and started counting out chips. The BB said, “Hey! Wait a minute! This is my blind here!” Unfortunately, I didn’t realize he’d look at his cards. I said, “I know, but I gotta’ do it.” and raised to 3x the BB. It got to him, he said some more stuff about it being his blind, then he moved in. Unfortunately, I basically had to call his all-in, but I wasn’t happy about it. I knew he had AA. If I’d realized he had looked at his cards before his initial speech, I would’ve just mucked. This hand cost me quite a few chips. C’iest la vie.

A few hands later, I had QQ in the BB. UTG raised it to 2.5x BB, everyone folded to me, I did my best to sound peeved (I was acting like I was still steaming from the KJo vs. AA hand) and said, “Alright, I’m all-in.” He called quickly and showed AQo. My QQ held up and I was right back in it.

About four hands later, I was on the button with TT and made a standard raise. The guy who previously had AA and made the speech called. The flop came down A8x and he checked to me. Now, this is the guy from a previous tournament who’d told me that he had a tell on me that indicated when I had a strong hand. What he didn’t know was that he’d gotten that tell on a hand where I was bluffing with Ace-high on a flop of KQx. I’m pretty sure this “tell” happens regardless of the strength of my hand, just because I’m playing a pot. Anyway, he checked to me and I could tell he was “getting a read” on me. I realized that the “tell” was happening, so I bet half the pot with my TT and made sure that his read would lead him to think I flopped a monster (I wanted him to put me on AK). He said he new what I had and folded. I think he even said I had an Ace. I told him I’d tell him later. Later, I did tell him I had TT and that I thought his tell on me didn’t actually tell him anything. That’s ok because he’s the type of player who will look for other reasons to fold big hands against me.

The blinds went up to 1K/2K-100. I was on the button with the mighty Q2o and decided to steal the blinds. Unfortunately, I was still stuck on the previous level (400/800) where my standard raise from the button had been 2000. I announced a raise to 2000 and immediately realized that was only a min-raise. Oops. The SB called, the BB folded. The flop came down KTx. The SB bet out, I thought for a while and folded. I told him I had AQ, but hated that flop. He said he had a weak King. I don’t know if he was lying, but I’m pretty sure he could beat Ace high and I didn’t want to pay a lot to find out how much he really liked his hand.

It wasn’t much longer and we combined for the final table. I had been card dead for a while and didn’t have too many chips. I didn’t play any hands before the end of the 1K/2K-100 level. The next level was 700/1400-100. Everyone folded to me and I moved in on the button with K7o. I think I had something like 4000 chips. The SB called, then the BB called and I knew I was in trouble. The SB had KTo, the BB had 54o. The SB won the hand and I stood up to leave, only to be told I still had chips. How many? 1400 chips, or exactly the BB. I folded two hands, but had to pay the 100 ante, so I was down to 1200.

Next hand, I posted the 100 ante, leaving me with 1100 chips. I looked down to see 74s, which was pretty close to the ideal crummy hand for me. I figured it was suited, and semi-connected, so I called all-in for my last 1100 chips. I then began goading everyone into calling: “Come on guys! Everyone get in there and quintuple me up! I need some chips!” I got two callers. The flop came down something like K4x. The BB checked, the button moved in and everyone else folded. Turns out the button only had Ace high and my pair of fours, seven kicker held up. I now had about 3600 chips. Next hand, I got KJo and moved in. I gave the same speech and got two callers. I also did a little acting and made my hand shake as I put the chips in. I figured maybe someone would be perceptive and make a crack about it, possibly inducing everyone else to fold for fear that I had AA. As it turns out, I had no such luck and I got two callers. This time, I made Kings up and tripled up. All of a sudden, I had about 12.5K chips and I was right back in it. That’s when the carnage began.

Two hands later, I was in the SB. MP1 made a standard raise and it was folded to me. I looked down to see QQ and moved in. He thought for a long time and eventually folded, saying he had AK. I think this was a terrible fold considering 1) I’d been moving in with junk and 2) It only cost him something like 8K more to call into something like a 18K pot. Against my range of hands, his AK was certainly getting odds to call. Nevertheless, I was glad he folded. The dealer ran the cards and he would’ve flopped a King, but lost on the river when I hit a set of Queens. I said, “I’m still glad you folded. I’d rather win 20K one-hundred percent of the time than get knocked out 50% of the time.” I was up to almost 20K and closing on the chip lead. This was the same guy who’d doubled me up at the previous table when I had QQ in the BB and he had AQ UTG. I think maybe that hand was on his mind when he folded. If I’m in his situation with AK, it’s an insta-call.

From here on out, I won’t talk much about bet sizes relative to the blinds and such. It just didn’t matter because everyone was basically short-stacked or extremely short-stacked. It was going to come down to catching cards and playing aggressively.

Now that I had some chips, it was time to start stealing blinds. We’d been at the final table for a few orbits and I had a pretty good idea who was just trying to survive and eke into the money and who was unlikely to play a pot if he wasn’t first in. I went after these people virtually every orbit. I was raising mostly with junk, but I occasionally caught a hand like KJo, although it didn’t matter because people rarely even called my raise, much less made a play at me. One of those blinds steals was with AA, unfortunately. The table was so tight, I just never got action on my raises. That was bad for AA, but good for my overall final table experience.

I busted the guy on my left when I made a standard raise from the button with KTs. He moved in with 99, I called and spiked a King to knock him out.

It turns out the guys to my right were really in to messing with my blinds. The guy on my right made a standard raise one time and I laid down A7o (I thought that was a big mistake after I did it). I figured I’d give him one pass, but I was moving in if he tried it again. Next orbit, he completed the SB, I raised with junk, he folded. Next orbit, he made his raise again, I moved in and he folded. A few orbits later, he limped from the SB, I moved in, he called and he showed 85o. My Ace high took it down and I busted him.

A few hands later, the new guy to my right (formerly two to my right) completed the SB and I moved in. He immediately folded. I was determined to make sure they knew that my BB wasn’t just there for the taking. You were going to have to beat me out of a pot to get it. A few hands later, the same guy made a standard raise from the SB into my BB and I called with KJo. I thought about moving in, but didn’t see any reason to go crazy. I’d already shown I don’t mess around in the blinds and since I knew he knew that, I thought he might actually have a hand. The flop came down T95, giving me a gutshot straight draw and two overs, but he moved in and I thought about it and folded my KJo face-up. He showed 53s for bottom pair, crummy kicker. I had a really hard time figuring out why he would play this hand against my blind like that. I hadn’t been giving up my blind, so he had to knew we’d be seeing a flop. There were a lot of hands I could’ve had that crushed him there (I definitely would’ve called with A9, AT, KT, JT, T9 and hands like that).

We were now four-handed and I got 66 UTG. I made a standard raise and got called by the button. Flop came down 996 and I fainted. Actually, I remained calm and bet out about half the pot. He quickly mucked. I was immediately disgusted with my line. Why bet out? This guy hadn’t been showing much aggression anyway. I should’ve checked to let him catch something on the turn. Big mistake.

About six or seven hands later, I was in the SB. The button, who’d become short-stacked, but not extremely short-stacked, moved in for about 20K. I peeked down to find AA and started thinking about how I could extract maximum value. I decided to play it nice and slowly, so I asked how much the raise was (even though I already knew), counted out the chips from my stack and eventually said, “I call.” I was hoping to induce the guy to my left to call or move in, but it didn’t work. Regardless, I busted the guy with QTo and we were now 3-handed. I had the chip lead and no fear whatsoever.

Next hand, I was on the button and the BB was extremely short-stacked. I’d been picking on him for a while as it was obvious he was folding his way up the money ladder. I asked him how much he had, he counted it out and I made a raise to about that amount. In retrospect, this was a poor play because I wasn’t paying attention to the not-so-small stack in the SB. If I was in the SB, I would’ve realized the button was picking on the BB, but wasn’t all that strong. Indeed, I only had K4s. The SB called my raise and the BB folded. The flop came down T94 w/ two diamonds. The SB checked and I moved in for about twice the pot with my bottom pair, King kicker. He shrugged and said, “I guess I call.” He had KQ of diamonds. That left him with a gutshot straight flush draw and an overcard (Queen). He was a slight favorite. I couldn’t figure out why he’d check/call all-in there, but that’s how he played it (I would’ve just moved in with it in his position). The board didn’t help him and my fours won and knocked him out.

We were down to heads-up and I had a monster chip lead (something like 9:1 or 10:1). I basically just went completely aggro until I busted him. I offered him a chop based on chip count (we each take second place money and divide the remainder of the prize pool proportionally by chip count), but he didn’t take it. Actually, when I first offered it, he said, “I dunno’. Let’s play one more hand.” The dealer dealt, I moved in, he folded and I said, “Ok, you wanna’ chop?” He decided, “Nah, I just wanna’ play it out.” I said ok and busted him two hands later. Actually, I doubled him up first. Then, the next hand, I had 84o, moved in from the button and he called with Q9o. I spiked an 8 on the flop to end the tourney.

So, that’s a re-cap of my first MTT win. It’s strange how little I really remember about the final table. I don’t remember many actual bet sizes, I don’t remember a lot of the hands I stole with. It just happened very quickly. I think the entire final table took less than an hour. It was crazy to come back from being short-stacked with less than the BB to running over the table on my way to a win. It’s also crazy that the hand that turned it around was 74s. The jury is still out, but that might be my new favorite trash hand.

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My 2006 Final Four experience: Team Building

Next year came and went, along with our hopes of returning to the Final Four. We didn’t know it at the time, but we were seeing the beginning of a string of early exits from the NCAA Tournament. In 2001, we got whooped by Temple in the second round. In 2002, we lost a heartbreaker to Creighton, 83-82 in double overtime. In 2003, we replayed the 2000 Finals with Michigan State, only this time they bested us in the second round. In 2004, we fell to Manhattan in the first round. In 2005, we ran into Villanova in the second round.

All the while, Gator Nation was buzzing with speculation that Billy’s run to the Finals in 2000 was a fluke, that he wasn’t that great a coach. Personally, I went back and forth. From our success during the regular season (we averaged over 20 wins for all five of those years), it was obvious that he could coach. What wasn’t obvious was why our team kept fading in March. I think a lot of it had to do with our tournament draws. Creighton is always a tricky team, although we definitely should’ve beaten them. Tom Izzo is just a good coach and his team matched up well with us in 2003. In 2005, Villanova was arguably the toughest 5-seed in the tournament and their grit and athleticism neutralized our finesse. I think there were also issues with team chemistry. We always had one or two superstars, but the rest of our team often wasn’t as involved as it should’ve been. Superstars can win regular season games, but team play and defense wins championships. Defense was another big issue: we rarely had much of it. Our teams could score a lot of points, but they weren’t all that tough. Villanova was simply more physical than we were, and we couldn’t match their intensity.

Going into the 2005 season, I think we were all expecting the worst. We lost a significant portion of our offense and experience, and our team was very young. We weren’t even close to the pre-season Top 25 and I don’t think many Gators were too upset about that. We were bracing for a “rebuilding” year, and that’s what made everything else so sweet.

We started off winning the Coaches vs. Cancer tourney in New York. I watched both of our games against Wake and Syracuse, and then I e-mailed my buddies at work the next day: “We’re good.” The team chemistry was undeniable and it was obvious that these guys weren’t intimidated by anyone. Right out of the gate, we had beaten two ranked teams and we had very few tough games on our pre-conference schedule. Next thing we knew, we were 17-0 and poised to take the No. 1 spot in the polls. Almost as if it was scripted, all three remaining undefeated teams lost within hours of each other. To Gator fans, this was no surprise because we were accustomed to tanking when we topped the polls. This time, we only had to be the de facto leader before we dropped a game. All Gators everywhere simultaneously thought, “Here we go again.”

I admit I was one of the first doubters. I just didn’t want to get my hopes up. This team was young and there was no real, logical reason to expect anything great from them. Our schedule so far had been pretty easy, we hadn’t really played any big games (the Wake and Syracuse games lost their luster as the season went on), and we still had a long way to go. Many of the starters had barely played in 2004 and I began to wonder if they were going to hit “the wall” that everyone talks about. They certainly looked to be fatiguing and we weren’t winning close games as we had at the beginning of the season. The good news was, we weren’t losing by much either. We were losing, but never being blown out.

Going into the 2006 SEC Tournament, I think there was a great sense of urgency for all of us. We hadn’t been winning close games lately, we had even lost three straight, and we were in danger of getting a crummy seed in the NCAA tournament. I think Gator Nation felt a great need to defend our SEC Title from 2005. In retrospect, I think that this tournament was what ultimately led us to the Final Four. We got a great draw, so our path to the Championship game was relatively easy. We were fortunate to get a bye the first game, so our guys could rest up for the remaining games in March, however many they may be. We got another shot at two of the four teams who’d beaten us earlier in the season, and that gave us a chance to work on specific aspects of our game. We had let Arkansas’ guards have too much freedom when we first played them, and our game against them in the SEC Tournament allowed us to work on locking them down. The South Carolina game was key, in my opinion. They had beaten us twice by pounding the ball inside, and forcing us to play a grind-it-out type of game that drained the shot clock and drastically slowed the tempo. The difference was that we won this one and we learned how to beat them at their own game. I think this game gave us the blueprint that we used to beat Georgetown in the Sweet 16.

After the SEC Tournament, we only had to wait a few hours to find out that we’d been given a 3-seed in our bracket. We would also be playing the first two games in Jacksonville, assuming we made it through the first round this year. I don’t think Gator Nation really knew what to expect. On one hand, we’d had our best season ever. On the other hand, we still had a very young team with little experience and no obvious super star. What was worse, we had to wait almost a week to see our first NCAA Tournament game.

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My 2006 Final Four experience: Remembering 2000

After the Gators won the National Title a few weeks ago, I talked a lot about the team, but not much about my actual experience this time around. I’ve said many times that some of my fondest college memories were collected during March 2000, when Florida made an improbable run to the National Title game. I was nearing the end of my sophomore year and had tons of friends who, like me, were rabid Gator football fans. Billy Donovan hadn’t been at UF but a few seasons and his first couple seasons weren’t very memorable. Nobody remembered very much from the 1998-1999 season, but we all remembered losing to Gonzaga in the Sweet 16. During the 1999-2000 basketball season, I think we started to appreciate winning and we began coining terms like “Billy Ball”, which was a reference to Donovan’s up-tempo style of basketball. Admittedly, I didn’t watch many basketball games in 1999, and when March rolled around in 2000, I don’t even think I filled out a bracket. I thought it was silly and didn’t see any reason to drop money to “compete” against sports gurus and girls who chose the winner based on school colors or mascots.

I didn’t see the Butler game because it was on a Friday afternoon and I was probably too busy skipping class to even care. But I heard about the end of the game and, like many other Gators, suddenly had an interest in Gator basketball. That Sunday afternoon, I was one of several students who gathered at some friends’ apartment to watch us play Illinois in the second round. I don’t think any of us had high expectations, but we all had high hopes. When your team hangs on because of a miraculous buzzer-beater, you have no choice but to start believing, and that’s what we all did. We soundly beat Illinois and we were back in the Sweet 16 for the second straight year. We didn’t expect much because we had to play Duke next, but we knew it was no fluke that Billy D. had taken us to the Sweet 16 twice in a row. He had taken a losing basketball program and turned us into a contender. Still, our expectations were low as we geared up to face the perennial powerhouse Blue Devils.

That was a long week, but the game itself went by quickly. “We just beat DUKE!” We all said that at some point that weekend. We couldn’t believe it and we really didn’t know what to do about it. By this time, the crowd of students watching the game in my friends’ apartment was growing pretty quickly. There were several of us for the Illinois game, but we all watched comfortably on a couch, or a chair. For the Duke game, there were more bodies and less room; people were sitting on the arms of the couches, piled on the chairs, seated on the floor. By the time we played Oklahoma State, we were packed in as tight as we could be, the windows were all open and we were still sweating like pigs. We were used to that from football season, but we typically didn’t bunch like this in the Spring.

Changes had to be made for our Final Four game against North Carolina–another TV was brought in along with some couches, a makeshift bench was made on a rail between the dining and living rooms, every window and door was opened and the fans were all on full-blast to keep the air moving through the place. This was by far my biggest sporting event as a Gator and I think most of my friends felt the same. None of us were around in 1996 when we won the National Title in football, and most of our football seasons thus far had been anticlimactic because we had come to expect nothing but perfection from The Ol’ Ball Coach. SEC titles were nice, but we didn’t really get up for them like we would’ve if we hadn’t won the National Title a few years earlier. Basketball was different, though, because we didn’t expect to win. We didn’t even really think we had much of a chance, but we wanted to make sure we saw it if we pulled off an upset. After the game, we all ran out onto 34th Street and screamed, jumped, waived at cars and generally acted like idiots. It was awesome. “We beat North Carolina!” We all said it, but we could hardly believe it: we were playing for the National Title… in basketball!

The Michigan State game is kind of a blur to me. I think that’s partially because we lost, but partially because the game was pretty boring in general. Tom Izzo basically put together the perfect game plan to beat us: don’t allow the Gators to play Billy Ball. Michigan State took 30 seconds to shoot on every possession, slowed us way down in transition, played good defense and hit most of their shots. From the highest of highs comes the lowest of lows, and we felt it. This was the first time most of us had experienced a National Title game, and it was also the first time most of us had experienced losing a National Title game. There were about 70 of us there to watch, and no one said a word after the final buzzer. We just sat there, quietly wondering if we could make another run next year.

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April $50 tourney re-cap

I usually try to write my re-cap within 24 hours of the event, but I just didn’t feel like it on Saturday, and I was pretty busy playing online Sunday (more on that later). This will probably be a pretty long post, although it’ll be shorter than in would’ve if I’d written it Saturday because I’m sure I’ve forgotten a hand or two. Here we go:

After re-reading previous re-caps (that is why I write them, after all), I saw a common theme was that I was “card dead”. While I think that was true, I think I was also probably playing a little weak-tight. Over the past few weeks, I’ve begun rethinking my pre-flop strategy and I basically concluded that I simply wasn’t opening enough pots. This was either because I wasn’t getting cards or because I was playing rocky-tight. I think it was a combination of both. I decided to increase my range for opening hands to include some medium suited connectors and a few other “speculative” hands. My reasons for doing this were three-fold: 1) I simply needed to be in more pots to win more pots. I also needed to make SURE I got action when I picked up a big hand; 2) I feel very comfortable playing with these opponents after the flop, and I needed to give myself more chances to do that; 3) if I hit a hand with one of these “speculative” hands, I’d be sure to get paid off because many of these guys overvalue hands like top-pair and even big overcards.

So, I basically started out raising more pots that I normally would. I was playing in position and even playing well out of position. The first pot I won was from the BB when everyone folded to the button, who limped. I had 92o and the flop came 2Jx rainbow. I bet out about half the pot and the button called. I’ve played with this guy enough to know that he’d raise if he hit top pair, so I immediately put him on a draw of some kind (keeping in mind that a draw could be just two overcards). The next card off was a rag and I bet out again. He called. The river was a Q, which wasn’t a good card for me. I decided to check and see what he wanted to do. He checked behind and showed AKo and my deuces took the pot.

Two hands later, I was on the button with TT. Normally, I’d raise this hand, but there were threee or four limpers and I saw a chance to win a big fat pot if I flopped a set. I called, the SB completed and the BB checked. The flop came 98x rainbow, everyone checked to me and I bet the pot. Everyone folded. No set, but I’ll take it.

I stole the blinds a few times before I made a standard raise from late-middle position with AQo. Only the BB called. I’d played with him before and knew him to play according to his cards in the BB. He would call with decent cards (QJo, JK, KQ, pairs, medium aces) and give up on the flop if he didn’t connect. The flop came down K-high and he checked. I bet half the pot and he called. I immediately decided I was done with the hand unless I hit an Ace. Turn was a blank and we went check, check. River was a blank, he bet out and I folded.

We had started with 4000 chips and I’d worked up to about 4500, mostly by stealing blinds (my best hand so far was my pair of deuces). Blinds are 75/150 (this is the fourth level, but we only play 20-minute levels) and we’d been playing for just over an hour. Everyone folded to a pretty weak player in the CO (I’ve played with him before and he makes a lot of dinky 2x BB raises and does a lot of limping; usually his bet directly correlates to the strength of his hand) who limped. The button folded and the SB called. I was in the BB and looked down at two black Jacks. I popped it up to 600 total. The limper in the CO thought for quite a while before he called, and the SB folded. I immediately put him on a medium pocket pair. The only hand I could see limp/calling with (for this guy) was AK, and I was sure he would’ve raised with it to begin with. I don’t think he would’ve called the raise with hands like KQ, KJ, QJ, or medium suited-connectors (he might’ve limped with them, but I could tell he had a tough decision on whether to call and I felt if he was going to call with these mediocre hands, he would’ve just thrown the chips in quickly). I figured him for TT-66 or 55 (also allowing for a very unlikely AK or KQ). The flop came down K79 with two hearts. I felt that was good and bad. As much as I hated to see it, I didn’t think the K had hit his hand and I was more afraid of the 7 and 9. I put out a continuation bet of 600 (just under half the pot) and he quickly raised it to 1600. I put on a “thinking” act for about 20 seconds and then mucked the JJ face-up. He showed 77 (flopped a set) and took it down). I was ticked, but I played it perfectly and he just got lucky. I was down to 3300 after playing great poker for the first hour.

A few hands later, I made a steal-raise from the CO with 54o. The BB is calling station, but he’ll give up his BB if he has a weak hand. Unfortunately, he called and the flop came down Ace high. Normally, I’d represent the Ace, but he bet right out at me and I knew he had an Ace. I just let it go.

About five hands later, we were about to go on break when I got dealt JJ in early-middle position. UTG folded, UTG+1 called and I raised to 600 (we’re still at the 75/150 level). Everyone folded to UTG+1 who quickly moved in for the rest of his chips, which was about 1300 more. There was about 2700 in the pot and it cost me 1300 to call. I put his range on exactly AK, AA, KK. This guy was a tight player and I’m sure he would’ve raised with QQ. I had a tough decision to make and I took a couple minutes to think about it (this was for about half my remaining stack, thanks to JJ busting me up earlier). This was a pot-odds problem and a tournament equity problem. I was getting about 2:1 pot odds to call with JJ against a hand-range of AA, KK, AK. I didn’t do the exact math, but I knew he was about 60% likely to have AA or KK, which would have me as a 80% underdog. The other 40% of the time, he’d have AK and I’d be a 55% favorite. If I had a lot of chips to work with (say, if I was sitting on 6000 instead of 2500), this would be an easy call. But if I called this and lost (which I would, most of the time–about 66%, I found out later), I’d be crippled: I’d have about 1300 chips left and the blinds were going to 100/200 on the next hand, so I’d have 6.5 BB. If I folded, I’d have about 2600 chips left, or about 13 BB. I decided I’d rather fold and keep out of short-stack range. I also kind of felt it was a little more likely than normal that he tried this with AA or KK than AK. I mucked the JJ face up and he showed AK. The deal (even though we didn’t request it) ran the board and my JJ would’ve been cracked on the river. As it turned out, I was getting almost EXACTLY the pot odds required to call based on the range of hands I gave my opponent. I think this is one of the situations that David Sklansky talks about when he says to avoid very close decisions for a large portion of your chips early in a tournament. In this case, I was getting odds to make a marginal call that would’ve crippled me about 66% of the time (I would’ve been down to 5 BB in the next 4 hands).

From here on out, I didn’t catch any cards for a very long time. I was literally catching T7o, 62o and trash like that for about 15 hands. I did manage to get a walk (everyone folded to my BB) and steal the blinds twice in three consecutive hands, but that did little to stop the bleeding. Finally, with the blinds at 150/300 and with about 2200 chips in front of me, I moved in from early-middle position with QTo. The player to my left immediately called all-in (he had about half the chips I did) and everyone folded to the button called all-in (also for about half my chips). Obviously, I knew I was in bad shape. The player to my left had JJ and the button had QQ, which held up.

I was down to something like 1100 chips and I picked up K9o on the next hand (UTG+1). I moved in, the guy to my left (previously two spots to my left) looked at his cards and practically said, “Oh boy! I have to call!” (I’m not making that up) He called, everyone folded and he showed AKo. The board made a straight and we chopped it.

Next hand, I got AKo UTG and moved in. Mr. “Oh boy!” looked at his cards, thought for a second and said he had to call because, “I’m just getting cards.” Everyone else folded and he turned over QJo (!!). This call was for about half his chips, he was UTG+1 (with about 6 people to act behind him) and he called with QJo. I was pretty shocked. Even if he puts my range at something that QJo might be a favorite against, he still has six people behind him and we’re early in a tournament, so he can’t count on any kind of “cooperation play”. But I digress… The flop brought an Ace and two rags (making me about a 95% favorite to win the hand), the turn brought a Jack and I began shaking my head even though people were congratulating me. The river brought another Jack and I was out 21st of 32 players.

Although I busted earlier than I had in any tournament this year, I felt I had played my best tournament poker in a long time. I made good reads and simply didn’t get lucky.

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Florida Flattens the Final Four

Ironically, there isn’t much I can say about the Gators’ performance this weekend. George Mason was billed as this year’s Cinderella, but Florida didn’t seem to share the same respect for Mason’s mystique as the rest of the country. They simply outmatched George Mason at every position and coasted to a convincing win. Next up: UCLA. It was entertaining to see all of the sports analyists flip-flopping on their predictions after Saturday’s games. UCLA handled LSU, but it was pretty obvious that LSU just had a terrible game while UCLA played very well and capitalized on LSU’s many mistakes. Before Saturday, Florida was the consensus favorite to cut down the nets on Monday, but after UCLA’s game against LSU, the consensus became a coin-flip. UCLA’s vaunted defense became the big story and everyone forgot that Florida handled Villanova, a No. 1 seed, less than a week earlier.

Fortunately, the Gators have refused to acknowledge the hype–positive or negative–all year, and the media’s sudden distrust in their ability to hang with a tough defensive team didn’t affect them in the least. It only took a couple minutes on Monday for the Gators to announce their superiority, and then they continued to remind everyone just how good they are by frequently adding exclamation points to the story they’ve written all season long. Noah with a block, Horford with a dunk, Moss takes a charge, Humphrey buries a transition three, Brewer with a steal, Green with an assist, Green with an assist, Green with an assist, Richard changes a shot. And every time UCLA tried to answer, the Gators took it up a notch to keep them at bay.

This has been such a fantastic season for the Gators. It’s too bad Coach of the Year honors have already been given because I think it’s obvious to everyone that Billy Donovan deserves that title. Out of nowehere came a team with more chemistry than I’ve seen on any team in years, and suddenly they’re breaking records and setting new ones: Best start in school history, first triple-double in school history, most made freethrows in a game, most consecutive freethrows, and the list goes on and on, culminating with our first National Championship.

I’m tempted to speculate about next season, but it just doesn’t seem appropriate right now. October is so far away and there’s no telling what will happen between now and then. For now, I’m just looking forward to reading the deluge of articles that will be written over the next several weeks. In a way, the best part of winning the Natinal Championship is that we’re going to be the topic of conversation for the next several months. It’s great to be a Florida Gator!

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Basketball team up to 10-0, in the Finals

This could get confusing because there are two basketball teams in the Finals right now–the Gators and my league team. Right now, I’m talking about the league, but I’ll get to the Gators later. We won last week, but it wasn’t pretty. We played a team that we beat pretty badly the first time around, and we were down 14-2 at one point. In the second half, we got our act together, ran a little hot and slowly closed the gap before permanently taking the lead. Most of us were shooting poorly (though we took good shots), and our defense was confused quite a bit. We were fortunate to pull out the win. This week, we’ll be playing a very good, deep basketball team and we’ll need to bring our best game to win. Unfortunately, we’re playing with only six guys because our best perimeter defender is away on business. That will hurt because the other team will have at least 8 guys and maybe 9, so we’re going to be playing fatigued throughout the game. I think we can win. but we’ll have to play good basketball.

Gators in the finals for first time since 2000

We’re there and we look great. All the detractors are back-tracking and we’re looking better by the game. Earlier this season, a common criticism of this team was that we didn’t have a “go to” guy. My initial reaction was that having a go to guy can often be detrimental if a team isn’t able to play through that guy’s bad nights. Our team is fully capable of compensating for a guy having an off night, and we have a different star every time we take the floor. I think our Final Four game was one of our best, and yet our leading scorer was the least publicized player on our team, Lee Humphrey. Our next game is against UCLA tomorrow, and I think we have a great chance of winning it all. UCLA is solid, but I think we have an advantage in most of the match-ups, and we play similar styles of basketball.

Celebrity sighting

Well, it wasn’t so much a celebrity sighting as a “me” sighting. I was looking for some dental floss at Target last weekend when a lady came up and asked if I was an actor. I figured this was a funny coincidence and that she must have me confused with someone else. I told her I had acted in a short film last year, but nothing more than that. She said, “The Might Stride?” So she did actually recognize me. Somehow, she’d seen the short and we talked about it for a couple minutes. She said she really enjoyed it and that she thought I did good work. It was really encouraging.