Folding My Way to Second

We had our monthly home game last night. The turnout was good and with 15 players, we were able to pay through 4th place. We had a good mix of styles and abilities at the game. I was able to avoid confrontations with the guys who were more likely to call my bluffs and concentrate on hitting them with good cards. With the other guys that play a little tighter, aggression was usually rewarded with folding when I was playing air.

I was able to take down a large pot early when my opponent convinced himself he had the lower kicker after I went all in. I would not normally have done this, but he seemed too timid and I was able to take advantage of it. He was already having the unfortunate luck of good preflop hands that quickly turned to second best. This helped me keep enough chips to pick more spots later.

We were down to 5 and I had my usual small chip stack on the bubble. I have really gotten tired of bubbling so I decided to use a different approach. The guys that were left were getting pretty aggressive so I knew my 8 2 off suit wouldn't go far against the bigger stacks. I was in the small blind and calling the BB would put me all in. The dealer and the BB both had me covered and I knew there was about to be some pushing coming soon. I folded the hand so that would give me 3 more chances to wait someone out or pick up a hand to push with myself. Well, I got exactly what I hoped for right away. The dealer and the BB got it all on by the turn and this knocked out the BB and placed me at 4th. Wahoo, I finally get my money back for once. My luck continued as I won every time I pushed or someone else got knocked out when I didn't play the hand. I was able to do this to find myself in second with about .000001% of the chips in play. Head's up lasted only 1 hand but I was thrilled with my cash. This is financing the ATL blogger game this weekend.