WHAT A HAND!

I have not won a thing in a very long time and it has been affecting my mental makeup. I went into today with a clear head and a commitment to think through every decision and make the proper play. So, I played three events and busted out of all three in grand fashion, but at least I feel I played my best so I don't have the anguish of kicking myself for costing me a chance to win.

In the $200 big one, I was around $2k of my original $3k when I raised with 99. I was reraised from the big blind and a case could be made for folding, but he's got AK often enough in that spot that I wanted to take a look at the flop to see how he reacted. It came K94 with two clubs. He checked, which I found suspicious, but it made QQ somewhat more likely, so I checked behind him. The turn was a small club and he made a stab. I had a club and of course the set - there was no point in slowplaying any further so I pushed my stack in. He had KK leaving me dead to clubs, but none arrived. No complaints here - I'm going to go broke every time in that spot.

I played the $200 Mulligan and met a grisly fate when a smallish stack pushed from early position while I held QQ on the big blind. A big stack flat called behind him which gave me an honest decision to make. I had too few chips to be choosy enough to fold in this spot so I went all in and hoped I would see jacks from the big stack. The small stack had 88 and the big guy showed AK. I wound up finishing third in the hand when both the ace and the eight flopped. It was a hand worth dying with and it was ahead when the money went in so I can't second guess that play.

In the interim, I joined a $75 event and played perfectly for two hours before this crazy hand came up: The average stack was around $14k and I had $21k. I got dealt KsKh in third position. There were a lot of chips at my table so I was looking to play smallish pots and nothing huge if I could help it. UTG ($17k stack) raised and I just called behind him to see what developed. There were two additional calls from the blinds making for a $5450 pot preflop.

I'm really not married to my hand at this point, knowing that UTG could have aces and the blinds could have who-knows-what. So then comes the action flop of all time: (As Qs Ts). I knew my hand was no good at this point but there is the draw to the royal staring at me. The big blind came out betting $4500 and UTG called. I made the call hoping for either a friendly or a cheap turn. The small blind folded and the pot was now $18,950.

How I wish the turn card would have been a spade - or even a jack. The 8c fell, making for a tough decision by the time the other two players were both all-in and staring at me. I had $15k behind, so I could have simply folded and still been a tick above average, but I was also getting decent odds to make the call. I knew I had the nuts with any spade excluding the eight and also would have the nuts with any jack. I was also good to catch either remaining king unless UTG had trip aces. So do I put in my final $15k to try to win $61k and give myself final table chips? Of course I do. I'm either going to be broke or the chip leader but at least I'm drawing live.

Sadly, this story does not end well. The dude pushing the action had AT and couldn't imagine being beaten. It didn't matter, because all the chips were going in anyways since UTG had trip aces. Kings were no good, but spades and jacks were golden, giving me a 26% chance to win. I ran the numbers and if the AA was actually AQ then my odds of winning jump to 33% since the two remaining kings would have been in play. In any case, the river was the ten of diamonds which helped everybody but me. Worth a shot.