Self destruct at the $300K Sunday Guaranteed

Man, poker can make you hate yourself sometimes. I just made an ass of myself in the $300K Sunday Guaranteed.

My strategy before the outset was "don't get involved in big pots unless you are have a very strong hand". For an hour, I kept to the plan. With the standard 5K starting stack, I had played solidly for the first hour, engaging in a little sparring with good hands, taking down a couple of small pots, staying around the chip average with no drama.

Then self destruction - overplaying a hand quite spectacularly, in true fish style. I blew my whole 5.5K stack in one hand after an "alpha-male" raising war with another fish.

I had A10 in the BB - with just two limpers into me. I raised it up to 3BB and got one caller. The rag flop came 10 6 3, which I liked. I bet 400, was reraised 800, which I called. Turn comes a King. Still not too worried, I bet out 800 into the pot, and am reraised again. There is now about 2500 in the pot, with my remaining stack just under 3K.

With any other player on the table, I would have run away at that point. But of all the players on the table, this is the one I dont believe - he was the habitual raiser/bluffer.

I was vaguely worried by a set, but his limp-in preflop didnt really support that. I figure he also has a 10 with a kicker he likes - 10J maybe.. suited connnectors seemed to fit in with how he had played the hand.

With no real thinking, other than "i dont believe he has a hand so strong that I cant push him off it", I re-reraise all in. I had not made any large bets until that point in the first hour, so figured my tight image would pay off at that point , that he would fold unless he had the absolute nuts. He thinks for 20 seconds, and calls. He shows K10 for two pair to have me beat. No ace on the river and I'm out. I had been ahead after the flop, but the turn made him 2 pair, and I chose the completely wrong moment to bully the serial raiser off a hand.

Absolutely gutted, but mostly embarrased to have overplayed the hand quite so spectacularly. I don't wait around to hear the comments about my idiotic play. Don't want to add their insults to my self-inflicted injury.

I had abandoned my strategy and gone all-in with Top Pair-Top Kicker in the face of strong reraising. Really embarrassed at making such a horrible play. I thought I had left this behind a couple of months ago. Its horrible that under pressure/excitement, it can come back in such force.

And gutted at repeating one of my regular "leaks" - not believing that a bluffer/serial raiser can actually have a strong hand for real sometimes.

Particularly annoyed that the near 4-hour qualifier I fought my way through with so much patience and discipline to get here has now been rendered a complete waste of time by this self-inflicted bust out. It wont be very often that I get to play in a $215 buy-in tourney, and I'm steaming at myself for throwing it away so cheaply.

Avoiding making big mistakes is the mark of a proper player, and even though I have drastically reduced the number I make, I still have it in me to make horrendous plays for massive amounts of chips from time to time. And in No Limit poker, that generally means game over. I am still firmly in the fish/donkey category until I can stop these insane urges to blast someone off a hand, largely hoping they dont have a really strong hand rather than knowing they dont.

I was under no illusions about my chances in the tourney - I was obviously operating "out of my league" , and had no delusions of making the final table unless the deck slammed me in the face for several hours. I wasnt going to outplay the number of good players that were in it, so I had to have the cards to go deep. That said, I did think I had it in me to make it to the money (top 200 places) with decent cards and solid play.

But I didnt give myself that chance, having a brain-fart on one hand that ends my tourney. I'm still a fish - I need to fear myself almost as much as I need to fear my opponents.

Another painful lesson learned the hard way. It only cost $33 dollars, but it still hurts a lot at the moment!