The strangest thing

[happybhoy]

There is a scene in 'The Usual Suspects' that has always stuck in my mind.
Stephen Baldwin steps out onto the ships deck with a puzzled, faraway look on
his face. Kevin Spacey asks 'What is it?', Baldwin replies 'The strangest thing'
before falling, dead, with a sickening thump, face first into the ships deck.
It's always kind of stuck in my head, in the directors commentary it's revealed
that Stephen Baldwin did the take multiple times each time actually ploughing
face first into the deck, no additional sound effects were added. Which only
goes to prove that Stephan Baldwin is a moron. The reason it's come to mind
recently is that I have discovered that, I to, am a total moron.

On saturday I managed to get heads up in a live tourney, blinds are 5k-10k and
the 300k in chips on the table are split even. I'm dealt A2o off the button and
raise 20k, the other guy re- raises 50k and I shove all-in. The other guy calls
with A8 (A9?) and wins. I've spent the entire weekend trying to figure out why I
did it cause I was at a loss to explain, there was no need to get involved. If
this had appeared on the board I'd have thought to myself 'Fold and wait for
a better spot' and moved on. Well, I've thought it through and I reckon I've
sussed why I did it.

I recalled that I've done this a couple of times previously, all in informal,
wee stakes home games. In the home games I've done it because the stucture has
been massively misjudged leaving mountains of chips and relatively small blinds
when it reaches heads-up. At this stages some people have been sitting out for
an hour or two and competely bored out their skulls and I've thought, screw the
money, lets get this finished and I'll look for any sort of a hand to get all
the chips in and bring it to a quick conclusion and get the next game started.
But, I've realised it's the same reason I did it over the weekend, the guy I was playing had
told me he'd been up for days, the staff in the place where clearly in the last-
hour-of-a-shift zone and there were a couple of spectators who looked ready to
crash, in short there was a palpitable,though unspoken, air of 'lets get this
over with' in the air and I've gone and done the same thing - got all-in with
mince just to bring it to an end for everyone's sake (except mine). On a scale
of 1 to stupid this measures a 'Frank Spencer' on the moron-o-meter, it makes
misreading your hand look positively enlightened. The only positive I can take
is that I've recognised it and will be wary of it in the future but by missing an
opportunity to double my winnings, it's turned out to be an expensive lesson.

Anyhoo, thought I'd share.

[mex]

You min raised or raised another 20k?

I used to do this alot too.Pushing A% etc only to find my self out kicked.

I found this helps, Before i raise i decied what i will do if reraised, and stick to it. 

[Lee]

If you are both pissed off, the staff are pissed and you all want to go home, just split the money and both go home smiling. Two happy people is far better than one.

[kinboshi]

Also, don't play poker against Keyser Soze.

[doubleup]

"Oh f**k it all in" is the greatest cause of misery in my poker life.  

[The Dundonian]

"Oh f**k it all in" is the greatest cause of misery in my poker life.  

LOL! I second that emotion!

[happybhoy]

Mex - I raised another 20k, could have played out differently if I had bet stronger but it was still very tentative at that point a raise or bet preflop or on the flop took most of the pots and had traded blinds more than a couple of times. When I saw the ace I had pretty much decided to bet and follow it up on the flop first to act. Thinking about it I acted too fast as well, I don't recall spending any time to call the allin, I'll have to keep an eye out for that too.

Lee - I don't want to give the impression that anyone was pissed off, in was a perfectly good natured game, no negative vibes. I'm just kinda steamed that I donked off all my chips like an idiot. Just reminded me of the home games, feels like a subconscious knee jerk reaction, kinda hard to explain. I'm not a big fan of making deals - I can't do the maths, I'd rather take my shot at the 1st place.

Kinboshi - I'll add onto the list just after 'men called doc' 

doubleup - thats why I don't play cash

[JungleCat03]

I raise a lot of hands on the button in hu and if I'm short or very far ahead ill nearly always raise rag aces.

In situations like this where you've both got a reasonable amount of chips evenly spread, i often limp though.

A2 is never in great shape should you get reraised but when you limp in, you can create a very strong, disguised hand when you hit the ace.

People will often go crazy betting 2nd pair and bluffing the ace/semi bluffing draws, because it's harder to give a limper credit for an ace.

If you limp in and he makes a small (20-25k) raise, I'd probably call as again you have a slightly disguised hand and position. If I had a particular tell that he was almost certainly at it, I'd limp raise allin, although I'd like more information before doing this.

If he makes an overly large raise then i'd prob pass and look for a better spot.

Still a result though mate wd 

[happybhoy]

Cheers -  that make a lot of sense and it's exactly the kind of things I should have been thinking about, but I'm still spitting bullets. I haven't reached enough final tables yet for me to be able to chalk it up to experience easily. Still I haven't played much cards in the past half year and I'm pretty stoked about the weekends results and I'll be giving it another shot next weekend.