Any avid poker player will know about “a chip and a chair” that became famous when Jack Strauss, thought he was all in and had one chip left. He then went on to win the tournement. I have a new term for tournament poker, “two big blinds and a dream”.
I was recently playing the Party Poker PLO Powerfest and this is the scenario I found myself in just after the bubble had burst:
I found myself getting all my chips in the middle pre-flop wit th AAxx vs KKxx. Getting it all in with Aces vs kings pre flop is a usual pump fist moment, but this was Omaha, and hand equities run a lot closer than in Holdem. Needless to say I lost the hand and was left with a mere two big blinds.
The dream was still there for a deep run in an event, I folded the next couple of hands and waited to get my hand in good, luckily it held up. Before I knew it I was back in the game with an amount of blinds I could work with. After some good plays and things going my way, I found myself in a position I could have not foreseen after my Aces getting cracked. I was chip leader with only eight of us remaining, this is where things went sour.
Call it naivety or over confidence my change in fortunes going from the brink of death to within an arms throw of a Final table was my downfall. A hand came about which I have analysed over and over, mistakes were made and learned from, the hand cost me half my stack. I was 4th out of 8th now, still in a very comfortable position, if only I had reminded myself of my earlier predicament.
The feeling of losing half my stack hit me hard, harder than it should. Within a few hands I got my chips in good with a draw, but that was essentially what it was, just a draw, a hand that would win a percentage of the time, A situation I should not have found myself in and was eliminated.
The Dream still goes on off winning a Poker series event, in my failure and self destruction it has only made me stronger.
