BATTLE OF LITTLE BIG PAIR

I played the $109 Rebuy today at Stars. There was a fella pushing every hand during the first few laps. I managed to catch JJ and double up, saving me the rebuy. The guy must have invested $1500 into the tournament. I don't know how often he wins, but that doesn't seem like a smart investment to me. If the money doesn't mean much and you just want to win, then it's not a bad ploy to push and pray a lot during the rebuy period, but this guy always seemed to have a trey or deuce in his hand when he pushed. That is some low percentage poker. At least try to get both cards over 7, then take a shot. Why he was repeatedly pushing with J3, T2, 63, I cannot say. It never did seem to work. Occasionally he would hold AQ or 99 and had much better luck with those cards.

I caught a set of fours and slowplayed it until an ace hit the turn. It gave the A9 top pair with a spade flush draw and he pushed with it. I was able to add those chips to my collection. Then I went card dead for the remainder of the first hour and by the break I was below average, yet only $100 invested.

I added on, then the first playable hand I picked up was AK. I managed to get it all in preflop against AT. The flop was Jxx and he hit the miracle KQ to double thru me. So, I had to wait and wait, because the next hand I played was do or die. I got down under $2k when I finally picked up AQ. I pushed and found one caller. He also held AQ but the first four cards to hit the board were all hearts, giving me the nut flush.

The next hand, under the gun, I picked up Big Slick, AKc. I just pushed, as I was still relatively short stacked and this would seem like I didn't really care to play the hand postflop a la middle pair. I got a call from the chip leader with AQ and I doubled up again. I was working my way back into decent position when this disaster struck:

I had KK in third position. Blinds $100/200 ante $25. My stack is roughly $7k. Second position raised to $600. I was a below average stack, yet this guy was below me by over a grand, so I decided to take a risk and hope he pushed into me postflop, since I didn't want to raise him off his hand preflop.

So I called and sixth position, with his big stack, raised to $1900. Second position called. In hindsight, this was the moment that warning lights should have flashed inside my eyelids. What was the short stack doing just calling and inviting me into the pot? If I had taken a moment to think about that conundrum, maybe I would have pieced it together. However, since I had him outstacked, I probably would have pushed anyways - lol.

So, I pushed all in and both players called. Shorty had AA, I had KK, and Big Stack had QQ. If we had all missed, then I still would have walked away with a couple grand, but the Q hit the flop and busted us both.