Curse of the Limped Kings

The £15K last night. An uneventful first hour - up from 1500 to 1770 at the break. First hand after, I get AA all-in with AJ and move to 4400. Five minutes later, my raise with 99 is reraised by 55. I take him out and go to 10,320.

With the blinds at 200/400, it's folded to me in the button with A8. I raise to 1600 and the BB goes all-in for 3500. It's 1900 more to me, with a pot of 5700, so I call, but he has AK and I'm down to 6000 chips. This hand illustrates one of the problems with these big tournaments that only have ten minute levels. The blinds rise so quickly that, once you're through the first few levels, any bet you make represents a considerable proportion of your stack. When a shortstack goes all-in against your raise, you're rarely getting bad enough pot odds not to call, even when you have a hand like A8, which was just a blind steal.

A pair of Jacks takes me to 8600 at the second break, and I'm 39th of 57, with the top 50 getting paid. Five minutes after the restart I'm dealt 77 on the BB, with blinds at 800/1600 and antes of 200. There's a mid-position limper, SB calls, and I go all in with a raise of 7700, at the pot of 6200. The limper then goes all-in and the SB folds. I knew I was in trouble, and the limper's KK duly knocked me out on 55th - 5 spots off the money.

At the bubble of these 20 or 30 quid tourneys, I'm not one to try and scrape into the money if I have a reasonable amount of chips - if I think I have a decent hand I'll go ahead and bet, so I'm not too disappointed at missing out on the £45, as if I'd won that last hand, I'd have been in good shape to finish well up the money.

I also had a go at qualifying for tonight's New Orlean's tournament, but had cold cards until I made a set of 7s which lost to a rivered straight. That left me crippled, and I eventually bowed out when I (again) went all in against someone who limped with KK.

Note to self - watch out for those who limp with monsters. These people will also generally limp with mediocre hands as well (and raise with good hands AK, AQ, JJ etc) so it can be difficult to spot, especially with the high turnover in online games.

I might buy into to tonight's New Orleans tourney, depending on the value. There's a seat for every 80 entries and 3 spots, so the overlay disappears at 240. There are currently 90 people in with 40 minutes to go. I'll make some dinner, then see what the turnout is.