This is the 3rd month I've made it to the $25 NL Holdem Tournament held at a local bar & grill here. It has between 25-30 players and is considered a game among friends. It's fun and makes for an enjoyable evening that will be even nicer once I can make it to the money.
This month I made a disastrous call to a 3x my bet on the River. I had trip 7's from the flop with a good kicker and had made a substantial bet on the Turn that was called by the other player. That told me something, like his 3x raise to my River bet, but I wasn't listening. I was only paying attention to MY CARDS, not what the other player might have. If I had, like I should have, I'd have known that my best option on the River after he raised my bet was to fold, no matter how much I didn't want to do that.
When we showed our cards, I felt good about my trip 7's, but the player had hit his flush draw on the River. I'm not sure if it was reasonable for him to call my bet on the Turn on a draw, but he did, and was lucky this time. What's most disturbing about my play is that I didn't bother to look at the board texture to see what he might have been betting/calling on. I had no idea that the board showed a possible flush. One can't win playing that way. I've played enough to know better than that, but this is one of the problems I have with live play vs online play. I've not yet got myself to play with the same diligence/awareness I do with online play, at least when I have a HUD to help me out. I'm sure more live play will help me improve on that.
Not all that many hands later I was down to 400 chips with the blinds 200/400 and it looked like I was going to have a short evening this month. A few all-in's and a bit of luck with the cards and I was back in the game. I lasted for 2 breaks and the chip up. After the 2nd break blinds were 400/800 and the time blinds go up was soon going to change to 15 minutes and after that 10. I had about 2600 chips at that point, and as the BB I had AK. One other player from LP open bet 3 BB and I felt my choice was to fold or go all-in. I chose to go all-in. He had pocket 10's and they held. My poker evening was over for this month. I felt OK about my play that hand as, at best, I had 2-3 more times around the table before I blinded out. True I may have got a better hand, but then I might not have.
Cake poker has the closest play to the live game, except for the blind structure. They go up every 10 minutes where live we start at 30 minutes, but Cake Poker doesn't let you use the HUD so I have to pay better attention to what the other players are doing. My plan is to play a good number of approx 27 player tournaments and/or SNG's during this month to help me improve my play.
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