Just Horsin' Around

Well, I embarrassed myself in the WPBT HORSE tourney. I went out 5th out of 61 people, in 57th place, and I didn't even deserve that good of a showing. I played holdem horribly. I played Omaha horribly, getting scooped by our host April on a pot where I was clearly second-best on both sides. I played Razz laughably, playing only one pot after, typically, receiving seven sets of pairs among my first 3 cards out of 13 razz hands. SEVEN pairs! Can you believe that? Then of course when stud started, I received exactly ZERO pairs out of 12 hands. SUCH a typical Razz/Stud experience is it not? I almost made it through the entire "E" round of stud high/low, but by that point I was forced to move in with a draw of 2-4-5-6 on 4th street, and of COURSE I got no help, lost both sides and was mercifully out. I said my goodbyes and moved on to pokerstars, while keeping the HORSE tourney open to watch the festivities.

Pokerstars was very frustrating as well. I was already in a bad mood from my showing in HORSE, and then on ps I did the $10 tournament that I final tabled early in the week. I made it from the original 814 entrants down to less than 200, but this was the 10% payout schedule instead of pokerstars' usual 20% schedule, something which i actually prefer since I don't care much for making $1.13 that they pay you for coming in between around 12-20th percentile in their 20% tourneys. Thus, when I moved in after a check from my one opponent with my A7 on a board of 567, and my fish extraordinaire opponent called me with 34o, I was bounced out in around 150th place but did not get the cash. It was not technically a bad beat, but at the same time it is difficult to be comfortable with losing to a guy who flops a straight, and does so with 3-4 offsuit, against your A7 which ALSO turns out to be top pair top kicker. That's what I call the "setup" beat, instead of the "bad beat". It was set up for me to lose a lot of chips given the way it played out. Not the most frustrating beat I've ever taken, but it didn't feel good following up on a truly donkifying performance in the HORSE tournament. I'm looking forward to staying up late tonight and playing some good tournament poker, including my first ever cash in a 180-person sng on pokerstars.