Second Table Hell

It’s official; I’m in second table hell! In my past twelve tourneys, I’ve had only two final tables and ten second, two of which I was the bubble boy. It really sucks to get so close so very consistently and then get beat out time after time.

I did have one very sweet and well played pot that night though. I was small blind (50/100) with Kc8c. It got to me with a min raise so I called as did the big blind, total of four in the pot. The flop comes Qc 9d 7c. I checked, BB checked next person made it 300 to go and everyone called. Turn is a 2c so I have my K high flush and I check it. The guy made it 300 to go and I check-raised him to 600 and he called. The river is an Ac and I see that I have the nuts, so I checked again. This time he made it 600 to go and I check-raised him again to 1200 and he instantly went all in. As he got his chips out and started counting them out, I took a quick glance at the board just to make sure there was no straight flush there, then I called him. I only had about 700 more so he got to pull back about 550, then flipped up his 6cTc as he announced his flush. I let out a ‘oohh,’ knowing the pain he was about to feel as I flipped over the nuts.

I stayed one of the upper to upper-mid stacks for most of the night and was a good sized mid stack when we got to two tables. Unfortunately, it seemed like everyone was chasing at this table. Damn near impossible to get people to lay down, but because most of them had four people in the pot, someone would catch and all I could do was watch my stack slowly evaporate to the chasers and the blinds.

My last two hands really sucked. In the BB (1000/2000) I had Jd8d and one caller so far. I made a two BB raise to buy the pot but the BB called, the other folded. I didn’t feel too bad about his call, cause this guy is normally a very good donkey, who once in a pot, will almost never fold and call it all the way down. Flop was J Xd Xd so I bet about ½ the pot and he called. There were two more bricks and I kept betting about ½ the pot and he kept calling, then turned to show AJ to my J8 and missed flush so his A played and took the pot.

The very next hand I was SB and donkey was BB and I looked down to pocket tens. It was folded around to me so I went all in my remaining 3500 after covering the blind. He thought then called and turned an 8s6s. Flop was 5.7.9 In that order. The donkey flopped his straight. The turn was a T, giving him an even higher straight, but at least moving me up to 10 outs, which naturally failed to appear.

After that I went home and decided to de-tilt myself with some Captian and Diet and some nice micro-limit .10 NLHE on Stars. Sat down at the table with $5 and by the time I was nice and tired and ready for bed 28 minutes later after busting out four people, I left with $18.05. Not bad for half and hours worth of work.