Terrible Hand Analysis

I screwed myself out of a daily ticket. I was upset with myself because I tossed a perfectly good lead with a dumb hand. Bluffed and got caught. Yeah, I know, I'm thinking of booting myself from the group. Totally senseless. At the expense of my reputation, I'm going to describe my idiotic play in hopes that we can learn a lesson.

This is a 6+1 Daily Qualifier Tournament, 10 players, 1st gets ticket, 2nd gets rebuy. By playing very solidly, I found it was not too difficult to make it to heads up with Guy. We started heads up with stacks at about 5K for me, and 10K for him. Throughout the game, I was quite observant of his play. He seemed to overvalue his starting hands, but seemed to bet for value when he had a hand. He also seemed to recognize that I was a solid player, who did not attack me without a hand.

After a very few hands, I had taken advantage of his tendency to overbet his preflop hands, and his intention to use his bigstack like a club. I soon found myself with a great advantage, 12K to 3K

He started pulling the AI move with all hands.... blinds are at 200/400. He may have been on tilt at this point. Simply, he did not know what to do heads up. I did. There was really no need for me to get involved in any pot that I did not have a strong advantage.

As the BB, I start with 78 suited. I call, and he checks. I put him on weak overs.

Flop is all low cards. I have no hand, no draw, 8 high. He puts in a bet of about 2x pot. He tends to overvalue too much while headsup. I decide that he also does not have a hand, and that I can steal here.

I thought he was bluffing, and I re raised him AI. He called anyway. I just didn't think he could call without a hand.

Essentially, he called 7k with QJo. While there is no excuse for his play, there is plenty of room for improvement on my part. The mistake was very plain to me when I did it. I knew better than that; was just DUMB. There was no slip of the slider. Just being stubborn for no good reason. I have no way out of this one... worst move I've made in weeks.

Now, I would say that heads up is not a weak part of my game. I don't get impatient when headsup anymore. I tend not to get impatient at all, ever. I've been playing these short handed tournaments; once heads up, I'm better than 65% to win if I'm behind in chips.

I honestly did not think Guy could call, even though I knew I was behind at that point. A solution would have been to call at that point, or a min re-raise. A reraise or AI from him would have been all the information I needed to understand that my bluff would not work.

I'm not upset about the loss... really, more I'm upset at my moment of weakness. I played a very solid game up to that point, and even after that point. I almost made a comeback, but he got lucky, and that's fine. I love it when they get lucky, because this lets me know that my game is on point.

I'm over it... I am allowed to make mistakes, but that was a massive mistake. I've learned that I can bluff, but no reason to put in an over-bluff in that situation. What I did looked like A) a bluff b) top pair on board; he called, hoping to hit an over. He was weak enough (and I knew it) that I could expect
that he would call, simply hoping to get lucky. For his itty bitty poker brain, he was right to call. Personally, holding QJo, I woulda tossed in the face of the AI.

Now, if I did have top pair, I would never have put in that bet. If I had over pair, I wouldn't have put in that bet. I would have been trying to massage the pot.

Nux members are good and we can be bluffed and thats okay. Thats where our patience becomes our virtue. We have enough sense to be able to be bluffed. I like that.

I really wanted to forget about this foolishness and not think about my stupidity, but Dr. Blizzuff convinced me to analyze this debacle. Thanks, Dr. Blizzuff; good lessons can be learned even from dumb hands.

Damn, I'm becoming powerful.