Bad Beat!!

I played another live tournament last night, and as you can probably deduce from the post title, things didn't go quite so well this time.

I think I played ok on the whole. I doubled up early with a couple of good hand including a nut flush.

I had one brain fade in the middle, playing A8 suited on the button with about four runners. Flop came AQJ, and I bet my top pair and four flush. Turn was a T, and it was checked around - was the K slowplaying? I was happy to take a free card. River 9, and there was a modest bet to me, which I called. I completely failed to notice I had made the 8-Q straight, but luckily I showed my cards after the first player showed his QT two pair.

After that, I had a run of great preflop cards (AK, AQ, AJs etc), but hit no flops. I was unwilling to push it on a calling table. Speaking of the table, I saw some of the worst plays from two big stacks, including a preflop call of 1000 all-in (blinds 75/150) with Q9 offsuit! The same player later made a similar call (1125 all-in) with JT 0ffsuit. Sadly I was unable to capitalise on such dreadful play myself.

Later on, I was moved to another table, where the chipleader was having an extraorinary run of big pairs. He claimed to have played AA seven times in the 3 hours the tournament had been running. Judging by what I saw, I believe him!

And so to the bad beat. I was pretty short stacked by now (2700 with average over 5000), and was delighted to pick up AA on the button - my first decent pocket pair all night. Not only that, but UTG goes all in for 2800, and short stack to my right goes in with his remaining 800 or so. Inevitably my chips go in, and the other players show KK and A6s. I am a huge favourite, but sadly the poker gods are not smiling as a king appears on the flop. A second spade appears on the turn to give outs to the second player, but neither of us found salvation on the river. Busted with AA - at least I went out with the best of it. I finished 27th out of 100, which wasn't too bad. If my aces held up, I would have been in pretty healthy shape to make the final table. Mac made about 34th, another respectable effort.