No Mas Baby Cashes

Eventually went out 40th in the $50K guaranteed yesterday, making the money but basically just doubling up my buy-in. It's probably wishful thinking but I feel like I'm due for a serious cash in a largish buy-in event soon, as I've been right there in the last dozen or so I've played but haven't gotten over the hump.

Yesterday's outing was odd, as I got KK, AA, and then KK again within the space of six hands, all in the first ten minutes. The fact that I was sitting at 2,600 chips after those hands (starting stack of 3,000) was due to one instance of playing KK as poorly as I possibly could and then stacking someone with KK and doubling up someone else with AA when they flopped a flush.

Managed to double up shortly after that, though, when I flopped a set with 99. Hit the first break at roughly twice average stack, then was card dead for most of the next hour. Saw a free flop with 810o and doubled through a slow-played KK on a flop of 88Q, leaving me once again at twice the average stack at the second break.

Things pretty much fizzled after that, although I had a healthy enough stack to cruise into the money, which was a fairly easy decision when the best hand I saw for half an hour was 8 high. I eventually busted when I shoved all-in from the button with A10h and the big stack in the BB couldn't resist calling with A5o, flopped a 5, and that was all she wrote.

Had my first +$1,000 at the SnG grind, which felt pretty damn good. Of course, it's pretty easy to post results like that when you get donkfish lucky and turn in a set of ten consecutive results like this:

1st
2nd
2nd
1st
4th
1st
3rd
3rd
8th
1st

Yesterday pushed me pretty solidly into the black for the SnG grinding, and it'd be even juicier if I hadn't spent the earlier part of the month flailing around like a lemur, donating many American dollars playing the $200 SnGs, $500 heads-up matches, and other destructive pursuits.

One nice thing about the orgy of SnGs I've logged is that it's at least getting easier to let beats slide right off, especially early on. Yeah, it makes my spleen ache to get it all in on the first hand with AA versus AJo and lose, but at least I invested essentially no time in that debacle, fire up another one, move on.

And it can always be worse, as poker has the sick capacity to produce some pretty terrible beats. Here's an actual hand from this morning. It's five handed, blinds are 100/200 and the two people who tangle in the hand below have roughly equal stacks:

Everyone folds to the button, where Unlucky Dude Who Did Something Fierce to Anger the Poker Gods raises to 400. SB folds, BB calls.

Flop is J44, rainbow.

BB shoves all-in pretty quickly. Unlucky Dude Who Did Something Fierce to Anger the Poker Gods insta-calls and turns over JJ. BB shows Q7o, who seemingly picked a bad spot to bluff all-in with air, no draws, etc.

Turn is a 4. River is the case 4.

Pot is shipped to BB, who doesn't even understand what happened and has to have it explained to him that he won because his Q outkicked Unlucky Dude Who Did Something Fierce to Anger the Poker Gods' J(s).

On the flop:

Board: Jc 4d 4h
Dead:

equity (%) win (%) tie (%)
Hand 1: 99.5960 % 99.60% 00.00% { JhJs }
Hand 2: 00.4040 % 00.40% 00.00% { Qs7c }

Oof.