Back after a few weeks off

Played tonight for the first time in several weeks, taking 7th place in a 6-seat MTT bounty brawl, and another 7th place finish in a 9-seat MTT. I didn’t feel I played particularly well, nor particularly poorly, and managed to last well past the bubble and enjoyed myself.

In the Bounty Brawl, I started late, and only eliminated 2 players. I didn’t get great cards, but watched as a lot of my rag hands that I folded saw boards that would have given me trips, straights, and boats. A lot of missed opportunities if I’d been willing to play garbage hands like 35 and 72… but, nah. I know better than that. It still tests your patience to see stuff like that happen, especially when you could really use a boost through a monster hand. Eventually I went out just shy of the final table, when I had 9Q and made trip 9s on the river, and went all-in against the tournament leader, who held 9K. Just my luck.

In the 9-seat MTT, my first table was against a bingo player, who I took most of his chips on a hand where he shoved pre-flop with 35, and I had something good, I think AA. Didn’t have enough chips to cover him, so he wasn’t eliminated, but I shot up to 1st on the tournament leaderboard with this jackpot. I hoped that Bingo Boy would fall out of the tournament shortly thereafter, but he continued playing Bingo, and rebounded, eventually making back enough chips to end up just a few positions behind me in the tournament.

I didn’t have much going on after that hand, but held on to my chips, until a few other players caught up with me and passed me by, dropping me to 4th place on the board. I lost a big pot at one point, and dropped back down to somewhere between 12th and 19th place, but battled back, and ended up knocking a player out right at the bubble when we both had Top Pair, but my weaker kicker paired on the Turn to beat his Ace kicker – much to his annoyance.

Meanwhile one of the top players must have knocked out one of the others, and ended up with a gigantic stack. At the final table, he had 150k chips, I was in 2nd place with 33k, there were a few others around 20k, and a few under 10k, including Bingo Boy himself, who ended up eliminated 9th.

I could see that the tournament leader was going to bully the table with his giant stack. His opening bet was half of anyone else’s stack, and mostly people couldn’t play when he was in the hand. I planned to avoid him and let the smaller stacks get eliminated so that I could get as high a placement in the finishing as possible. But then I ended up getting dealt QQ, and decided to play it, knowing that if the Big Stack was playing, I was going to go all-in against him. And sure enough, he did raise up, I called, and we faced off. With an Ace on the flop, I figured I was probably in trouble, but it didn’t stop me from shoving – I should have shoved the QQ pre-flop, but I doubt he would have folded an Ace in this situation anyway. And of course he was holding an Ace, and I ended up knocked out 7th, along with one of the other small stacks who finished 8th.

At least I outlasted Bingo Boy.

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Played again tonight, starting with a couple of MTT. The bounty brawl – didn’t knock any one out, went out myself toward the middle, no chips.

Got knocked out of another MTT, then switched to 3-seat SNG for a bit, lost one then won a couple to put me up for the night, which was satisfying.

Then tried a 9-seat SNG with some stiff competition, and came in 5th, playing mediocre to earn a mediocre placing. I got to sit next to @SunPowerGuru and outlasted him, at least… but I beat myself in this one, not trusting my gut when I knew I was beat, betting rather than folding when I should have knew better.

Overall I feel like I’ve been playing worse since I came back than I had been the final week before I took my break. I’m capable of better. I just need to get back into it. Arguably I should drop to lower stakes for a bit to refine my game and then come back up, but I’m not sure.

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I know the feeling, where’s the unfold button when you need it?

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Played a bit better tonight. Took 3rd in the Bounty Brawl, although that was disappointing as I had entered the final table with more than twice the chips of the next biggest stack. Also took a 1st place finish in a 9-seat SNG, and took hard luck playing 3-seat SNGs, winning my first 1 and then losing the next 4. All told just up 32k chips on the day, due to all the 3-seat losses. I usually do better at those.