Another Blonkament Cameo

It seems that recently, I've been getting bounced early in the Blogger tourney's. I think part of the problem is that I have not been giving them the proper attention. One of the things I really like about playing with the bloggers, is that it provides a very consistent tournament playing environment. Playing with the same folks allows you to really get into some multi level thinking scenarios. This is in large part due to the fact we all have plenty of information on each other. In 'normal' tournaments, you may run into a few regular's, but unless your using some helper tracking software, you don't have much information on your opponents. This leads to alot of abc poker, until you do get a read on what your opponent's capabilities are. But when you all know each other fairly well, it makes the game that much more interesting as you can try an outthink each other. Of course, you have to be paying attention, so that is why I feel I was a bit distracted.

Having said that, I think I badly misplayed the following hand, which let to an early exit from the MATH. We were only an orbit in or so, when I get




in the Big Blind.

pebble78 raises 105 from UTG. Everyone folds to me, and I defended, looking to see the flop. And by looking, I mean obviously trying to hit a flop which would play well against his UTG raising range. The flop came what appeared to be gold for me:

Flop:
[ ]

I hit the flop pretty good, trip tens. So I check with the intent of check raising small, and seeing what he does.

pebble78 bets 120
twoblackaces raises to 400
pebble78 calls 280

I wasn't exactly expecting a call, I thought he'd either raise or fold. I think here is where I certainly failed to consider he may also have a ten. Frankly, I didn't consider it, because I remember being fairly surprised at showdown. Clearly, a call should have set off some alarms, and at least should have made me think deeper about this hand. I didn't, thanks to the other 6 tables I was running (excuses excuses)

Turn:
[ ] [ ]

So the Turn comes a King. I don't put him on QJ, but I thought he may either have AK, or perhaps even AK/AQ suited for a flush draw. So decided to pot it. Again, I'm in what appears to be LA LA land, since I snap re-popped his Reraise, and Voula:

twoblackaces bets 1,025
pebble78 raises to 2,050
twoblackaces raises to 2,540, and is all in
pebble78 calls 130, and is all in


twoblackaces shows [ ]
pebble78 shows [ ]
Uncalled bet of 360 returned to twoblackaces

River:
[ ] [ ]


The river brings a big old blank, and I'm crippled. Oh well, lesson learned. I truly do enjoy playing against all the bloggers, I feel many are very good players, some exceptionally good players. And I think we all want to do well, so I will definitely curtail down a bit, and not have so many tables going in the future.

2BA