I cashed in the tourney at The Salami Club but I missed a big payday

Around Noon today, I get an email from Dustin, copying Darko, Matt and a few others. “Who wants to play at Salami tonight”? Tonight is free for me, so I’m in of course. Darko, Wendy, Matt and Myself all ponied up the $60 buyin to get into the tourney. There are rebuys for the first two blind levels and I have to do it. First, I call a loose player’s small stack all in with As7s. He has 88. He had just been crippled by calling an 88’s all in with his QhTh so I figured it was time for the overcards to come. But they didn’t and I was down to 500 out of my initial 2000 buyin. Next hand, I get 88(!) which is the 3rd hand in a row. The same guy calls my all in with KhQh and flops a flush draw. He doesn’t make a flush, but the board comes with two pair, Aces and 9’s which counterfeits me and I’m out. I call for a rebuy and this time am able to take out the same guy when my AT beats his 24 all in (huh?). I’m now at 4000 chips, which is the equivalent of buyin in twice. I play pretty tight and only take down two or three pots on my way to the final table. There were only 15 players but I was around middle stack when the final table hit. That changed when had KJ offsuit in the 4th seat and the UTG made it 3X the BB to go. I made a semi-loose call and two other people called. The flop was KhJh6s. I had flopped top two. The original raiser went all in and I made the quick call. He had AhTh for the flush draw and a straight draw, but he missed both. He was a pretty deep stack and the double up made me chip leader at the table. I played pretty tight, surviving Wendy and Matt who both made the final table with me. With 4 players left, and 3 places paying, we all agreed to throw the 4th place finisher $20 each from the 1st, 2nd and 3rd place pots. At least I was know guaranteed some money. I stole one or two pots with aggressive semi-bluffs and maintained my lead when the smallest stack went on a 3 hand tear that saw him take out the 3rd place stack and massively dent the 2nd place stack. It was now a 3 way race and I was in second by a good margin. I picked up QdJd in the small blind and the small stack folded UTG. The small blind big stack raised to 3000 with blinds at 500/1000. I had a marginal hand but a good flopping hand and the 2000 extra to me was only 15% of my stack. The flop was beautiful. Qh9d6s. I flopped top pair with no danger of the flush draw. He had raised pre-flop which means he probably had an Ace or King or a pair, most likely smaller than a Queen. The only hands that worried me were AQ or KQ. Since I put him on a range of hands, and the likelihood of his holds the exact two hands that beat me were small in that field of possibilities, I surmised I was good here. He led out the betting with 4000 and I immediately moved all in. I had made this move on him a few hands earlier (with AQ and a Q high board with a flush draw). I hadn’t shown him my hand that time so my thought was that if I move all in on a big bet on his part, he might read it as a bluff attempt to steal a big pot. It worked perfectly because he hemmed and hawed but finally called with pocket 8’s. I showed the QJ and he looked crushed. The turn was a 9 which gave me two pair and the river was…an 8! OUCH, OUCH, OUCH and OUCH!!! He hit his two outer to felt me. If I had won that, I would have outchipped both opponents by nearly 8-1 and I am sure the tournament would have been mine. First place in the tourney was 780, 2nd place was 300 and 3rd was 120. Since I bought in twice and we gave $20 to make a fourth place prize, my winnings were $100 where they would have been $760 had that last card been anything but an 8. Essentially, I lost $660 on one turn of bad luck. It was have erased all my losses from this weekend in Atlantic City. When the card came, I reacted violently in shock, getting up and slamming the wall with my open hand. I was very happy I had played well, and you can’t control the cards, but that money would have been helpful. Oh well, such is life. I was in too much of a shock to sit down to play cash and I was afraid I would keep thinking about it, which I am, so I left.



Wendy, Darko, Dustin and Matt all played though, and I only saw some of it. Matt lost his buyin when he came in with K9 and flopped KJ9. He and his opponent went all in but his opponent had flopped KJ! Yeesh. Dustin ended up giving most of his money to Wendy on one hand when his AQ flopped QT9 to Wendy’s pocket Kings. Wendy kept calling and not raising, trying to be nice, and Dustin kept betting into here. She finally rivered a King to insure the win and took down a largeish $175 pot. She was up $270 when I left.



Also, the egg sandwich there is to die for. J