Bubble Boy

I hope this is not a leading indicator of my performance in the SNG Challenge.

I played two SNGs tonight to test the waters on UB. I have had great success on PP with SNGs, but success on UB has remained elusive.

It continues. I bubbled out of a $50+5 6 person Turbo with two bad beats in a series of 5 hands... the final nail in the coffin was my AK all in losing to J9 soooted. He made a flush and a straight on the river, costing me a shot at $210, or a for sure $90. Damn.

Rocky like, I picked myself of off the canvas with a standing 8 count and entered a 10+1 MTT SNG. I steadily chipped up, hovering in the top 2 or three the whole tourney. Final table, I am playing tight, not getting too many cards. My seat was the button when the chip leader was in the BB. I did not like that, it tempered my attempts to steal, he had at least a 2-1 chip advantage and I did not want to go out on a silly steal attempt. I folded a big hand with 4 left (3 pay) against what I am pretty sure was pocket AA or KK. The BB reraised my pre-flop 1.5X BB raise with a min raise. I had KJ hearts and called. The flop came xxJ with one heart and I bet pot. He came over the top all in and I folded. This left me with ~2600 chips with the leader stacking over 12000. Tough row to hoe.... He took me out on a semi-steal attempt with K8s. I pushed all in preflop and he called with KQo and caught a K and a Q on the flop. I was basically drawing dead with the rainbow flop. Yup, IGHN. Once again on the outside looking in.

What can I take from this? Investment $66.00. Loss $66.00. Bubble boy on both SNGs. Besides an opportunity to whine, I suppose I can be proud that I was only All-in the two hands that I lost (one tenet of doing well in things seems to be avoiding the coin flips) and I was in striking distance of making good money in both tournies. Can I chalk this up to bad luck? Tourney 1 yes. Tourney 2, not really. I knew that K8s is not a good hand to push with, I was really hoping it would be folded to me. In retrospect, a short stack all in bet into the chip leader in the BB is probably going to be called. It was bad luck to be betting into his massive pile the whole final table, but I should be good enough to handle that.

Overall, I feel like I played solid, but, losing poker tonight. Perhaps this means that if I keep it up, good things will happen in this challenge. Probably not, but here is to hope!

On a blog excuse tip, I have been out of town for work and vacation for the past two weeks and blogging has not been a priority nor has poker. I am headed out for another week's vacation at the end of this month to the Outer Banks, NC..... but I think the house upgraded to high speed wireless since we were there last year. The wife is going to be pissed!!!!!!

GL all in the challenge, I hope I can make it competitive.

STeelerJosh