Bodonkey Final Table

I think I played a pretty good game last night in the Bodonkey. I was not flawless, but for me, it was as close as I come.

I apparently have a knack for knocking out people while they are broadcasting on Buddy Dank Radio. Last time I called off all my chips as an 40% underdog against one of the Wonkas and pulled out the winning hand. Last night's victim was Instant Tragedy. This time, I got see see a cheap flop with 3 limpers before my small blind while holding 2,4. I complete and the big blind checks. I realize this is a crap hand, but I have a fair bit more than my starting stack and it costs me nothing compared to the pot. The flop comes a perfect A, 3, 5, all of different suits. I'm first to act with my wheel and put in a crazy bet of about 1.5 times the pot. All but IT fold and we see a turn. The turn is a 6 and while I no longer have the nut straight, I do think I have the best hand still. I'm still not worried about any draws and I'm sure he has A, something, so I bet about 3/4 pot and he calls. I am not thrilled with the river because it pairs the 3 on the board. I bet the pot this time and IT pushes over the top. The only hand I'm worried about now is A,3. This is a possibility since he just limped preflop and it would have kept him in the pot after the flop. Since he didn't raise me at any point, I gotta believe my straight is still good so I call. He flips over A,10 or A,8 and I knock him out. After I busted him, he commented that he was knocked out because I got funny and played 2,4. He didn't berate me or make fun of me which I appreciate, but I also don't think we agree on how the hand was played. In my little poker mind, I did pretty damn well, not just results oriented, but processing wise. I probably could have made a little more if I let another player in after the flop, but as we all know, flopped straights never win so I wanted to reduce the field.

I had Dave on my left 2 separate times during the night. I've always enjoyed playing with him from way back in the WWDN tourney days and he is one of the bloggers on my "to meet" list. Throughout most of the tourney, I pretty much had him dominated. I promise you Dave, I wasn't just picking on your blinds with my constant raises. Of course all of my raising was eventually evened out when we were the battling blinds again. We are down to the final 2 tables, I've got 2,2 in the small blind and as usual, I raise. This time Dave does a min reraise. Hmmmmm. We see a flop of Q, 4, 4. I'm putting Dave on A, with a high kicker. I don't think it is a Q and I have almost double his chip stack, so I put him to the test right there for all of his chips, minus one. Well the Hoy manuever doesn't work worth a shit when your opponent is holding pocket rockets. So I double up Dave and give up my decent stack. At least I was right about 1 card, LOL.

I was able to hang on and make it to the final table in bottom half. I tightened up a little to let the lower stacks get knocked out and made moves when I wasn't worried about getting called while picking up some blinds. My death hand came against JL514 in another blind battle scenario. We are 6 handed and on the $T109 adder bubble. It's folded around to me and I've got Jordan covered so with A,8 I raise 3X. He jams and now I've got a decision. This is the same thing that happened to me in the Vegas blogger game last summer. If I'm willing to commit all of my chips to the hand, I need to do it preflop, otherwise fold to the reraise. I figured I was slightly ahead so I made the call and he had 9,10 so this time I'm on the 60% side. The board pairs up one of his cards and I'm left with less than a big blind. I need to work on this problem of calling near coin flips when it's not necessary. Either more folding or preflop pushing from the blinds.

I finished the night in 6th and got my tourney fee back with a little cash to boot. This has put me to a whopping 45 cents over by initial deposit 3 weeks ago. Watch out!