Funny what you can rationalize

Last night I played two $5 6 player tourneys again, finished second in one and third in the other. This made my run over the past three nights 5 second place finishes and 2 thirds.

As always, I continue to look for lessons and things to improve upon and today’s message is to start being more aware and more honest with myself about my game. Don’t get me wrong, I think my game has been pretty good and getting better but here is how I came to the conclusion.

I had been telling myself that 5 second place finishes and 2 third place finishes in my last 7 games was pretty good, managed to be in the money 71% of the time and all that. When I told my buddy about my recent streak he immediately said “better work on your heads up play”. How did I react to that statement? Hmmm. Pause. Think about it. A bit deflating but …. good point.

In the seventh game of this streak we were down to three, blinds are 100/200 I’ve got about 2,000, SB about the same and BB 5,000 and I raised on the button pre flop with AC JD (check my blog from yesterday, even though this situation sounds like a replay of yesterday’s blog, I assure you it is a different hand in a different tournament with entirely different circumstances but sadly the same result). Flop brings 8C 7C 2C and I am not thinking this hit my opponent’s range but he shoves and has me covered. Maybe he’s on a draw, could this be trips, an over pair, a high club and he is bullying? Obviously I have the draw to the nut flush but I am not liking the way this is playing out. I am a big risk/reward guy in all aspects of my life, and can sometimes talk myself into taking a large risk if the potential reward is great. I “rationalize” that every now and again you go in behind but it’s okay to do it if you are aware of the risk you’re taking, hit a club on either of the next 2 cards and I win this hand, maybe even an Ace or Jack will take down the pot (although I admit I thought this was unlikely). So, I chuck them in and he turns over 3C 6C for the made flush. Why did he call my raise? He was the big dog, my raise was only 3 times the BB, he was taking a stand to slow down future raises, who knows? Neither the turn nor the river reveals a club and I am out in third.

We’re in a new tournament within minutes, this time I am a coach not a player and I am not feeling like I am in a position to help anyone out given the burden of wearing my new donkey collar, but there I was watching and discussing. Some unknown player makes a very similar call to the one that ended my tournament moments earlier and the second his cards are revealed I think two things almost simultaneously and say both of them out loud. “What a moron” followed by “that’s what I just did”. Funny how every now and again we can rationalize bad decisions even when we know better.

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