My FTOPS...See Last Post

So it is the 3rd hour of the FTOPS Razz event, 10:28 local time and I had just hit a nice hand to put me at 6730 and slightly above average in chips. This was the beginning of the end for me. It didn’t rally happen right away but it accumulated over time first into a snowball and ending in an avalanche of frustration and loathing.

At 10:40 I lost a playable hand after raising and then getting re-raised. I paired the board and had to throw away the hand. Then I run into this vs. a guy who probably had a made Queen. [Ad 5c 6s 6h 8s Ac] [Kd]. I lost the minimum on this hand but it knocked me down to 5370 chips. Down to 4330 but still sitting ok, I am waiting for my good cards to hold up a little better and ready to take advantage of the loose play at my table. But this starts to happen.

10:53 [Tc Ks] [Kh] Bring in
10:53 [4d Qs] [Kc] Bring in
10:54 [2c 4c] [5h] turned into this [2c 4c 5h Jh] turned into this [2c 4c 5h Jh] [2d]
10:57 [8h 4h 5c] [5s]
11:00 [3c 2h] [Jc] Bring in
11:01 [Ac 4h] [Js] Bring in
11:01 [8d As] [Jd] Bring in
11:02 [8h 2h] [Qc] Bring in
11:03 [4h 9s] [9d] Bring in

At this point I’m down to 2675 and not feeling very happy.

11:03 [6d Ac] [Ad]

I have played a very tight game to this point and it is folded to me so I take a stab at the pot with one low cards behind me. He calls with an 8 up. Next card I get a 10 and he gets a J so I bet out with what looks like a better hand. My mistake here is that the guy in the hand has a ton of chips. Anyway, I then hit a 7 and he hits a 5 and olds to my bet. I got lucky here but my image helped me. Back to 3675.

11:04 [Kh 3d] [Qd] Bring in
11:05 [Qs 3h] [Qc] Bring in
11:06 [Th 7h] [Kc] Bring in

11:07 [5s 9c] [2h] I call the big stack again here because he has been raising any low card up and stealing at will. I could be behind but I have my image and I think I’m probably ahead. I hit this: [5s 9c 2h] [5c] and end up having to run when I brick the next card. Down to 2525

11:10 [Jc 2h] [Qc] Bring in
11:11 [5c Td] [9h] Bring in
11:12 [7s 4c] [Qc] Bring in
11:12 [Ah Jh] [Jd] Bring in
11:13 [7s Ac] [5c] I go down with a made ten that was drawing to a 7 vs. a made 8 that had a J before 7th street.

I brought in 14 times in 20 minutes and bricked almost every good starting hand I had. Weeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeee. I was on my A game and got hit in the junk by this masochistic game. I originally thought it was 15 bring ins but in 23 hands but it was only 14. Considering that you should only get it one of eight hands played over time then I really hit a bad run of variance.

I was so pissed off because of the turn of events that I closed everything down within 5 seconds and stared at the wall. At least in Hold’em I could have tried to bluff my way into a stack by using my stack. Oh well…this one of the pitfalls of Razz and I have to learn to deal with it.

I stayed home on Friday. I fully expected to go deep so I had arranged for a vacation day to savor the final table I was sure to achieve. Instead I spent the day trying to burn of the lingering doubts I had from the night before. I played many low buy in tournaments in an attempt to get back into a happy place but it was futile. In the evening I fired up the 2K Razz event because I am into getting kicked when I’m down. I burned out of that but a funny thing happened. I played the Daily Doubles and made a deep run in the B. I went out around 60th…maybe better, when I tried a re-steal with my 87 suited. I pushed into a guy who held maybe 25 % more chips than me figuring he will fold a marginal hand and if he has AK or AQ that I’ll at least have live cards. He held the mighty A8 and when the 8 hit on the flop I knew it was over. No biggie…I needed some chips and took a chance. Mt read was correct other than I didn’t think he would call with a marginal hand.

While this was going on I played the deep stack PLO tourney and at some point into the morning hours I got knocked off the final table when my straight and flush draws lost to top pair.

I got back on the Razz wagon on Saturday and final tabled it so I guess I am back to playing a good solid game again.