#406 - FTOPS Notebook - Beth Shak’s Luck May Have Turned

I had to take a break from evaluating the “You’re Uncle Tilty” submissions to tell you about the rollercoaster Beth Shak is riding in the early going of FTOPS #11,  $1,000 + $60 NLHE. (I won a satellite entry but unregistered at the last minute because I realized it would be difficult to finish the contest properly while figuring out a creative way to donate my entry fee. That doesn’t explain why I’m watching Beth Shak play or why I’m in the $65,000 Guarantee - though I expect to bust from that at any moment.)

FTOPS #11 is a superstack event, so players start with 5,000 in chips and the action can move very slowly at the start. That apparently wasn’t the case with Beth. I was looking at the player list a few minutes after it started and noticed she was second to the bottom in chips with under 500.

I never found out how that happened but on the first hand I watched, she limped and was raised. She reraised all-in and was called. She had A-Q and the other player had A-T. There was a ten on the flop but the river was a queen so Shak held on.

She commented after the hand, “don’t think I’m running well today.”

Here’s how fast that changes: two hands later, now with almost 1,000 chips, she called a raise from the big blind with Kd-Td. The flop came Kc-Qh-Tc. The pot wasn’t very big but Beth moved all-in with top pair. The raiser, however, had Q-Q for a set and called.

At this point, Beth was 1% to win the hand. Hitting another king wouldn’t be good enough because that would make her opponent a full house. Only a king/nine or king/ten combo or running kings would do it.

King on the turn, king on the river. I had to type in the chat box, “I think your luck may have changed Beth.” That brought her up to 2,000 chips.