Yes, those low-limit games piss me off. I'd prefer to wait until I can play a bit of a higher limit game, but that's a ways off if I want to have enough to ride out the rough patches.
OK, so I was in another tourney yesterday, starting out the thing at around $53. I'd not had much luck this week. In fact, the day before, I had been beaten out of tournaments by rivered flushes all 3 times, losing my total buy-ins of $7. You have to stay positive about stuff like that and keep telling yourself that you got all of your chips in the pot with the best hand.... but it's still annoying as a mofo.
In this tourney I ran up my stack fairly well early on, picking up several premium hands in the early going and making the most of them. This was a $3 buy-in tourney with about 36 people, making the final 5 spots pay pretty well. So I just sort of sit around the top 4 all the way until the final 6. I finally start to get worn down, and the last person just won't drop for me to make the money. So I get a bit impatient, and put some guy who was playing EXTREMELY erratically all-in with pocket 3's. Not a good idea, as his trip Kings pointed out.
Now I was the guy everyone was trying to force off of the table, but I still had enough to make some noise. But I couldn't get anything. I folded before or just after the flop probably about 20 times in a row. I got ridden down to about $2,500 (this is out of the $54,000 in chips in play), with the next worst person sitting at $7k. Finally I got fed up and forced an all-in with A-Qo. The previous maniac calls me, and flips over A-Jo. Lucky for me, nothing hit him OR me, and I won. Still in last, but not quite so badly.
Then someone says to him (this is a chatty table): "Nice call idiot, he must've folded the last 50 hands and you CALL him with that?" At that point, it's like a light goes off in my head. I can start playing some shit and throwing my weight around. So, next hand I'm Dealer-minus-1, and I get 6-8 of hearts. I call. The blinds are the only other players to stay in. Flop is 4-8-Q, 1 heart. A minimum bet (blinds are $200-400 at this point, so min. bet is $400) folds 1 player, and I call. Next card is a 7, no heart. Another min. bet... and I think about it, but call again. Final card is an 8. I bet about $1500 and get a call, and turn up my rivered trips to another snarky comment: "Tight player, eh? That wasn't tight, you're a moron."
So now I'm on the comeback. The maniac finally gets knocked out as does another, so I make the money. Among the final 4 players, we have the chatty loose cannon, 2 tight female players (their usernames are Mary-something and another feminine sounding name I can't recall), and me. I'm still last.
First hand after we're down to 4, and I call with J-10o. I just can't help myself with J-10. I'll play it everywhere. In position, out of position, with a large stack, with virtually nothing, against 2 limpers, against a moderate raise. It's not that great a hand, but damned if I haven't won some spectacular hands with it. The only other player is the BB. Flop is 8-6-2. She bets the min., and I call. I figure her for a 6 or something. Next card is a 4, no help to anyone. She bets again, and I decide to call with my 2 overcards for no good reason, really. Not a good play. Then the river is a King. She checks. Now I've got it, she's got an 8 with some crap kicker like a 3 or something.
I make a play for the pot... the first time I can recall that I have EVER bluffed at a hand with absolutely nothing. I may make large bets with four-to-the-flush or open ended straight draws or bottom pair with a good kicker or 2 overcards or something. But I never ever have flat-out stone bluffed at a pot like I did here. But here it was. I put in $2488 (that took me down to $4000 if I had lost). That was about the pot size. I'd never been so nervous during a poker game as I was in that 30 seconds that her time bank opened up and started to tick away as she considered calling. Chatty Moron Guy pipes up and says "push those chips in you puzzy". Yeah thanks ASS.
Lucky for me, she does not call, and I jump into 2nd place with over $10k. I do a little dance in my chair, and start to catch some hands. I catch pocket K's and when the flop comes A-10-4, I wasn't thrilled to see a large bet from the low chip stack. But I called. The next card was a Q. She pushes all-in. I think for a minute and consider that any J or K makes me the pot, and since everyone hates folding pocket Kings I push my chips in. The river is my straight-making Jack, and Chatty Moron Guy (CMG) bows to my rivering abilities.
Now we're at 3, and both I and Mary-something are just beating CMG to death. He drops way down to $3k against me and Mary-something's $20k+. He finally goes all-in in the big blind. I decide to call with my Q-10d, and Mary calls too. The flop is a pretty 10-9-3, 2 diamonds. I check just for fun, Mary bets $1600 and I call. Turn is a 7, no diamond, Mary leads out again and I call. River is a 10 and Mary now checks. I bet $5k, she folds, and CMG is out. "Nice game," he grumbles.
First 2 heads-up hands against Mary, I draw A-K both times. I go all-in both times. She hasn't chatted once, but I don't think she liked it because she did the same thing to me the following 2 hands. We both folded to the all-in bets.
Then comes the judgment hand. It starts out innocuously enough, as I get 7-8o in the SB and call. She checks and we see 6-8-6 hit the board. Hmmm. I bet $1200 and she calls IMMEDIATELY. Slow-playing a 6 or she's got a 7-9 or 5-7, I think. Next card is a 4, making that possible straight. I check, she bets $2k. I think.... and call. And I am rewarded with a river 8 bestowing upon me what I like to call the nut house (barring pocket 6's, anyway). I bet $1200 hoping not to scare her off. She raises to $5100. I re-raise all-in, and since I've got her covered, this is it for her if she slow-played her 6.
I'll never know, because she mucked her losing cards, and I took home $38.88 for my troubles. Up to $91 (well, $85 after today's unsuccessful tourneys). What a tourney that was for me.