Breathe deeply

Hard to review a weekend where I played a ton of big and little tournaments and basically ended down by the rake and that’s it. That sounds as though I might be downhearted and really I'm not. I am just about playing as good as I ever have, while this is no stellar achievement it gives me great confidence to be back up to the stage I was at around 2 years ago when the playing time dropped significantly. I've been trusting my reads and making some really good calls but then losing to runner runners or 2 outers. Some really sick stuff, but it has to turn around soon.

This thing about "committing to the move" does mean that my whole stack is going into the middle more often. Even though I am mostly a favourite when this is happening the idea in massive tournaments is to eliminate luck as much as possible by not getting allin so often and leaving yourself vulnerable to a bad beat. Hard to avoid when every other monkey wants to get all there chips in the middle as fast as possible though.

My worst mistake of the weekend was deep in one tournament (itm at this stage) and I pick up pocket 3's on the Button. 1 limper before me and the SB and BB complete. Flop comes Qs 9s 2d and it's checked to me. The way the action has been going I don't figure anyone for having a piece of the flop and bet just under the pot. 2 blinds fold and then the last guy uses up all his timebank and shoves.

I've got him covered and I'm sure he hasn't paired the board, he's shoving a flush draw. So me thinking "nice read Tan, you genius", goes ahead and calls.

And he turns over KsTs

Someone types "nice call" in the chat

Then a ten hits hit the turn and he scoops the pot and about ten minutes later (yeah that’s how long it takes for the penny to drop) I suddenly think was that actually a good call ?

Of course it isn't ! With two overcards, flush draw and gutshot he's a 2-1 favourite to win the hand.

"nice read Tan, but your math was terrible."

Well, by the time he shoved I was getting odds to call even as that big a dog. I could you use that as an excuse, but lets be honest here. I actually thought I was ahead when that money went in.

Here endeth the lesson.