FULL TILT POKER BLOG

#395 – 48 Chips

Posted by Editor | Filed under Me in online tourneys

I was making a good run in the $750,000 Guarantee on Sunday when I got stuck in an awful situation. We were about 250 or so from the money (3+ hours into the tourney), the average stack was about 12,000, and I had over 14,000. Blinds were 200-400, antes were 50. I was very pleased with how I was playing.

Then the roller coaster started.

I raised to 1,100 on the button with J-To. The big blind reraised to 3,800. I would normally fold here but I remember Richard Brodie telling me something about the player, Phantom Aces. It may have been a year or two ago but he mentioned Phantom Aces as one of the best players in the cash game he had regularly been playing on Full Tilt. (At least I think it was Phantom Aces.)

For some reason, it flashed in my head that he was restealing. (We hadn’t played together before.) I didn’t feel so comfortable that I wanted to put in another raise, which would probably mean moving all-in. But I started thinking about how to take the pot away on the flop. So I called.

[I had exactly this same feeling on a hand I refer to as "The Best Hand I Ever Played Online", which I'll try to describe in this post or the next post, time permitting.]

As I started thinking about the kinds of flops I could reresteal and those where I’d give up the pot, it became moot.

The flop was T-T-4. My crummy-should-have-folded-jack-ten-offsuit had turned into trips.

He bet 4,200, I moved in for 10,438, he called. He had K-Ts. After the king on the turn, I was officially drawing dead.

Three hours of solid, smart play, keeping myself at all costs from busting – up in smoke. Then I noticed I that I had Phantom Aces covered.

By 48 chips.

I won’t give you a hand-by-hand recitation of how the tournament went from here, but this on was page 1 of 263 of my hand history for the rest of the tournament.

On the next hand, I was all-in with the ante, and I was dealt 6-3o. After a fight among bounty hunters, I was heads up with A-9 after a flop of Q-Q-5. I hit a six on the turn to run my chip total to 432. This turned out to be the only time I had to get lucky with the worst hand on the way to 20,000 chips.

I folded the next hand and, with A-To, partial-called the blinds for my last 332. Phantom Aces called but another player, obviously sniffing the bust-out bounty, moved all-in for 15,000 more. This player had K-3s. I caught an ace, he caught a king, I caught another ace, and I was up to 1,978.

The table soon broke and, on my first hand at the new table, I moved in for 1,828 over another player who had raised to 1,300. I had Ad-Jd. He had K-8o. He hit an eight on the turn but it was the second diamond and I made the flush on the river. That took me to 4,800, still just about 1/3 of the average with 200 to the money. But I was still alive.

It was another round later and I was down to 3,700 when I reraised the same player all-in with T-T. He had Q-T and my pair held up. That got me to 8,500, out of the range where it was all-in or fold.

A few hands later, I raised with 3-3 and picked up the blinds and antes. I got a walk in my next big blind, picked up the blinds and antes raising with 7-6s, and was up to 13,000, hailing distance of “average.”

On the next hand, I was dealt Q-Q and moved in over a shorter stack who pushed with J-J. After that hand, I had 19,000 in chips, several thousand above average.

Last year I had written in May about a tournament where I was last in chips with 50 to the money and ended up winning the tournament. This was a much larger tournament and I was even lower in chips. I was looking forward to telling the improbable story of winning $132,000 from a stack of 48 chips.

Alas, it wasn’t to be. I eventually made it into the money and built a good stack along the way. The tournament paid 522 places and I made it all the way to 64th, so it’s still a decent story.

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