I have about $50 in an online poker account. That's plenty. The 'rush' I get over chipping in a dollar and battling it out in a nine-way sit & go is plenty for me. That said, there are problems with this method. None more so than this: playing in the little pool with the little fish makes you susceptible to getting beat by people who don't know what they're doing.
Case in point. Actually, two from last night.
1) It's five-handed and I'm on the button. It's around the 15th hand of the event, and I have about half of my original chip stack. The blinds are getting pricey, I haven't caught cards all through this event, and I need to get some chips.
I look down at K9o, not the worst hand you can get on the button, but not an all-star either. Nobody really charges pre-flop, so I make it 2x to go. I get a couple of callers and we move on. The flop is mostly blanks. 8-7-3 or something like that. Someone in early position bets the minimum. Action folds around to me. Now at this point, I've played only one hand. I have nothing here, but I'm pretty sure that the raiser has nothing either. So I'm going to make a move. I've already raised, and I'm going to raise again. Big time. I push all-in. The seed I'm trying to plant is that I've got a middling pair (9s 10s or Js), which would make an opponent believe I've got the best hand on the board after the weak flop.
So it's her turn. Tick tick tick. The FullTilt 15 second bar has just about wound down. I'm sure she's going to lay her cards down. And she calls. She turns over A8. Then the turn comes with an A and I'm clicking FullTilt's stupid little "You just finished in 5th place" pop-up.
If someone ... ANYONE ... can explain to me how you call that bet in that situation, please explain. My only thought process is that she paired up one of her hole cards and had a fantastic kicker. She couldn't have possibly considered what I might have had in the pocket or my tight table image. She's a fish, playing only her cards and not the situation, and I'm burnt by her inexperience and stupidity.
2) Later on in the evening, I'm in a similar situation. Around a dozen hands into a sit & go and my chip stack has bled off around 1/3 of its original value. Again, I'm on the button, and I look down at 4d 5h. Blah. But nobody raises the blinds, I call, and I get to see a flop.
And what a flop it is...2-3-6, but with two diamonds. I'm pretty sure this flop doesn't help a lot of people - except me - but I am concerned about the flush draw. I'm not willing to go all-in here with the flush draw on the board, but I will make a big bet. I bet 3x the pot, or 600 chips, and I get a caller.
The turn is a low diamond. Uh oh. I make the same bet - 600 chips into a 1400 chip pot, or about half the pot. Another sizeable bet, and I get the same caller.
The river is another diamond. He checks over to me and I just check it, having only a couple hundred chips left at this point anyway. I figure the guy has stuck around and made his flush. Well he has. He turns over 55 - one of which is a diamond. His flush with his 5d beats mine with my pocket 4d.
But look at how this guy played the hand. After the flop, he had a gutshot straight draw and needed two cards to the flush. He had pocket 5s and called a bet for 3x the pot. After the turn, he had the gutshot plus a flush draw, and now had two overcards on the board. He stuck around after my bet of about half the pot.
What could I have done to chase this guy away from the hand? He was either completely married to his low pocket pair, or married to chasing the straight and eventually the flush draws.
A couple hands later, four-handed, I raise with AdTd and someone goes all-in after me. I call. He has KK and I'm done. What a night. At the end of the night, the only thing that got me to sleep was the comfort that I played the hands well. Not perfectly, I'm sure, but well enough to not have lost them in this manner. I guess I just have to accept that I'm going to lose some races to opponents with weaker engines who just happen to work their ways around the train wrecks that Hold 'em can leave on the track.
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