Tournament Saturday

As I wrote in my last post I joined a poker league, or will join the league beginning in 2007. This coming Saturday is the league's "final table" where the top 10 players of the year get together to play for a winner-take-all event. In addition to the final table, there is also a consolation table where all of the players that did not make the top 10 have a chance to play one last tournament. The consolation table is offered to all of the league players first, and then any of the stragglers who only played a few events during the year. I am such a straggler and was lucky enough to be offered the last seat.

The buy-in is $50, no re-buy's, no add-on's winner take all ($500 for those of you that are bad at math). I am really looking forward to this as I did pretty well during the last event and would have placed in that tournament if not for this unfortunate set of circumstances:

There were 26 entries in the tournament, $25 gets you $12,000 in chips.

The re-buy and add-on period had just expired and everyone was moved to the final table (9 players left). There were only 3 people left from the table I was playing at so the majority of the people I was facing I had never played with before.

My stack was above average at $32,000.

Blinds were 1500/3000, I was on the button (9 handed table)

I was dealt AJos

2 limpers, I raised to 6000, blinds folder, both limpers called.

Flop - A 6 7 rainbow.

First limper bet $10K. Second limper folded. I had him on a small/medium pair or Ax so I called.

Turn - 4 (no flush possible, straight was very remote).

The bettor went in with another 10K. At this point I definitely had him pegged for Ax, but I just wasn't sure if my kicker was any good. I figured if he had better than AJ, he wouldn't have limped in so I decided to go over top of him and put him all-in at 24K. Leaving me only 8k if I lost. He showed me AT, so I was right and had him pegged.

I don't need to tell you that the river was a &^$#@!* Ten. The guy actually apologized to me twice. That's poker, but sometimes poker sucks. I was gone about 5 hands later.

I believe the mistake I made on this hand was with the minimum raise I made pre-flop. In hindsight, I might have raised that to 12 or 18K pre-flop. But I had been playing very aggressive in last 3 hands so I was trying to change gears (excuse laden assessment)...

Thoughts on that hand?

Anyway - I will post my results after this weekend...