The earth was quaking, my mind was aching

I had two great chances for great scores on Sunday, but I came up short both times. The first was in the Stars WBCOOP (World Blogger Championship of Online Poker). Stars put together a great freeroll, where the top 100 got prizes, ranging from seats in live tournaments all the way down to Step 3 tickets.

I loved the structure of the tournament, as we started with 250 BBs and the antes came in very early. Just about everyone at my table was playing tight so I raised a ton of pots and built up a big stack. With about 115 players left I was 2nd in chips and cruising. But I lost a gigantic pot on the bubble to knock me back down to average. A short stack shoved !0 BBs in late position and I reshoved with AJo on the button. The two players in the blinds had about 30 BBs (I started the hand with about 70 BBs) so I didnt think either would call without a monster. But the player in the SB made a very good call with TT. TT is certainly ahead of my iso-shoving range there, but I was surprised by his call given how tight everyone was playing. Anyways, I lost the flip and fell to a slightly above average stack. I was able to rebuild my stack on the bubble, but just after the bubble burst I got most of my chips in preflop with aces and lost, and busted shortly after. Very frustrating. I did get a Step 3 ticket out of it at least. Thanks again to Stars for putting together an awesome freeroll, and good luck at the PCA to whoever won.

I also made a deep run in the $22 cubed on Stars, but I couldnt get anything going late and I busted out 9th for $592. From about 50 down to the final table, the play was very aggressive with lots of raising and re-raising. I wasn't getting good cards so it wasn't easy to build my stack. I found a few spots to re-steal, but when the final table started I was in 8th place, and I was quickly down to 9th as the short stacked player doubled up right away. I ended up busting blind vs. blind when I shoved into the big blinds 99 and couldnt get there.

I did have one fun hand in this tournament on the bubble, where I took advantage of my opponents fear:

PokerStars Game #23133971653: Tournament #127009098, $20+$2 Hold'em No Limit - Level XVI (1500/3000) - 2008/12/21 18:31:21 ET
Table '127009098 6' 9-max Seat #1 is the button
Seat 1: MaybeRiver (54420 in chips)
Seat 2: I_BLADE_U (101664 in chips)
Seat 3: scuty06 (81844 in chips)
Seat 4: Mr. Q You (67492 in chips)
Seat 5: rz133 (44558 in chips)
Seat 6: Loretta8 (120915 in chips)
Seat 7: JopperHarryN (128736 in chips)
Seat 8: Pardal77 (41831 in chips)
Seat 9: Ranbo85 (91367 in chips)
9 players ante 300
I_BLADE_U: posts small blind 1500
scuty06: posts big blind 3000
*** HOLE CARDS ***
Dealt to Loretta8 [Jd Td]
Mr. Q You: folds
rz133: folds
Loretta8: raises 4499 to 7499
JopperHarryN: raises 13501 to 21000
Pardal77: folds
Ranbo85: folds
MaybeRiver: folds
I_BLADE_U: folds
scuty06: folds
Loretta8: raises 99615 to 120615 and is all-in

Jopper and I are both top 10 stacks in the tournament; there are about 105 players left and 99 get paid.

While shoving here may seem suicidal, several factors led me to shove. I'd been raising a lot of pots so it was quite possible he was 3-betting light. His raise size also didn't seem very strong. A pot size raise would be to about 30,000, and he's only making it 21,000, which made it seem to me like he was leaving himself room to fold to a shove. He also thought for a while before raising, which made me think he was unsure of what to do with his hand. And since it was the bubble, I thought he would be less likely to call off basically his entire stack.

He thought forever and eventually timed out and folded:

JopperHarryN has timed out
JopperHarryN: folds
Uncalled bet (99615) returned to Loretta8
Loretta8 collected 49200 from pot

Since he used that much time, he obviously laid down a big hand. But I had no idea how big until he started chatting:

JopperHarryN: QQ :S
JopperHarryN: u had AK?
Mr. Q You: obv ak <-- sick soul read
JopperHarryN: think u just called with AA, maybe u had KK

Wow, I definitely wouldn't expect anyone to 3-bet/fold QQ with 40 BBs. If he's not going to call a shove with QQ there he is much better off flatting my raise.

I guess the moral of this hand is that there's a very very fine line in poker between looking like a genius and looking like an idiot. Had this guy made the right decision and called, I look like a complete donkey. But you can't be scared about looking like an idiot at the table. If you really think the guy's going to fold, then pull the trigger. If you can't trust your reads then there's really no point in having reads in the first place. And don't get discouraged if the play doesn't work once, you're not going to be right every single time, no one is. I've gotten caught 4-bet bluffing before and I'm sure I will be again in the future, but I'm certainly not going to take the play out of my repertoire. Good luck to everyone at the tables, and may you 4-bet bluff your way to victory.

Thanks for reading,

George