Patience, Patience, Patience … Not! - Part II

In my last column, I was describing how I had blown off most of my chips with the 4 2 and a final board of A K J 8 9. Yes, I bet every street,"firing all three barrels" (bluffing the flop, turn, and river), and raised before the flop (new bluffing phrase: "firing all four barrels"). I consequently lost $22,000 of my remaining $28,000. I was telling you all that my game plan was to play tight for a while and then mix it up later and make some moves. But, I veered away from that strategy and bluffed off $22,000 to Bill Gazes. All of this happened in Turning Stone Casino's American Poker Championship tournament.

Now, let's continue with my story of poker tournament self-destruction. A few hands after power-flushing the 22K into outer space, I was fortunate enough to pick up my name hand, the 9 9 (two black nines), and have it hold up against my opponent's A-K. Now that I was back in the tournament, certainly I would play my chips according to my game plan, right? Wrong!

Instead, a mere five hands later, with the blinds at $250-$500, I raised it to $1,500 to go with the 3 2, and the flop came down 10 5 3 (I had flopped a pair and a flush draw). When the big blind checked to me, I moved all in for about $14,000 into the $3,500 pot. My opponent called me quickly with the Q 10.

I absolutely hate his call here, especially because he had only $16,000 left. Was he hoping that I had stone-cold bluffed my last $14,000 into a $3,500 pot on the flop? Apparently, but I don't ever remember betting out that much money relative to the size of the pot on a pure bluff in my long poker life. Best case, he could hope I had the A K, which would still be a very slight favorite over his hand. I guess he thought I had J-10 or 9-9, or didn't think it through at all.

When the 4 came on the turn, I picked up even more outs going to the river. I counted 19 outs (eight hearts, three aces, three sixes, three deuces, and two threes), but that meant he had 25 cards to win. In any case, his bad call is beside the point. When the final card was the J, I left wondering what I had done.

What had happened to my well-thought game plan of patience, patience, and more patience? Instead of patience, I powered off my chips with 4-2 and 3-2! What happened to winning the tournament for my recently deceased friend Andy Glazer, whose surprise funeral had led me to Turning Stone in the first place? Sorry, Andy!

Had I stuck to my game plan, who knows how many chips I would have ended up with? After all, they did call my big bets with very weak hands: A-10 with a board of A-K-J-8-9, and Q-10 with a board of 10-5-3. If I had what I was supposed to have in those hands, I would have won them both and had the chip lead.

I'm now left with these two facts: First, the fact that I played great poker on day one has me looking forward to the next few months. Second, the fact that I couldn't stick to my game plan on day two has me a bit concerned. Every tournament ace has to be able to scale it back sometimes, and play extremely tight poker for at least a little while. In any case, I look forward to fixing whatever needs fixing (perhaps not blowing all of my chips with 3-2 and 4-2!), and to winning another big poker tournament soon.

Editor's note: Chat or play poker with Phil at UltimateBet.com. To learn more about him, his books, and DVDs, go to PhilHellmuth.com.