…or how to blow the chance to get in the money. So, I played another little Sit&Go tournament this morning (45 players, 1$ buy-in, 7 in the money) and this was really the tournament of pocket pairs for me – I had 2-2, 3-3, J-J, Q-Q, J-J in the tournament.

Early on I folded 2-2 and 3-3 in early position I played J-J and lost some chips. After that I decided to tighten up just a little bit and it payed off as I didn’t win any more pots, but I didn’t lose any chips (apart from the blinds) in a long time. Just before the first break (after 1h) I was done to the short stack and tried my luck with another 2-2: I went all in and another player called my with A-Q of spades – lucky enough for me my pocket 2s held up (Board: 8-8-6-5-9) and I doubled up.

After the break I caught some fire and went All-In again with Q-Q another player called again with 9-9 and my Queens held up again…now I was up to 7465 (4th position).

Then came my next critical decision and in retrospect my downfall: I was so happy sitting at the final table for the first time and not short stacked, but in a nice position. I was dealt J-J and was looking forward to play the pot…another player raised in early position I thought this was an attempt to steal the pot, so I thought: let’s go over the top and raise to All-In…to my surprise the player behind me called as did the other player who had raised out of early position…so it was showdown time:

Early position player who had raised initially: A-A (ouch!!!)
Ingoal’s hand: J-J
Player calling after me: K-8

Flop: 10-K-6 (noooo!)
Turn: 4
River: Q

So the K-8 player and me both busted out – me in 9th place and he in 8th place. Now remember: top 7 in the mony, so I just busted myself out of some money…and what hurt most was that the short stack (sitting around with only 2200 chips) was clever enough to wait and see, not playing another hand until he was all-in due to the blinds and still managed to finish in 3rd place. Now that hurts, but there’s another lesson learned: if you’ve got a big hand or not, is it worth gambling when you’re so near making the winning places (in the money)? I guess not really! Especially not pre-flop! Maybe this lesson will help my tonight at the blogger championship…let’s see how this one goes done (I’m not sure yet if I’m going to live-blog about it or not…you’ll see later on…)