Poker Interlude, Part II

A few years ago ESPN, as part of their WSOP coverage, had little features called "The Greatest Hand I Ever Played." Offhand, the only one I can remember was a great bluff that Gavin Griffin made on his way to a bracelet victory. They were nice little stories and they added clips of the hands to augment it. Overall a good little break from the action without having to go to commercial. Much better than the moronic "Nuts" pieces they do. Really, do I care if pros have leaks worse than the Titanic and bet $50,000 on three holes of golf or play Rock, Paper, Scissors to kill time?

The reason I bring this up is because I melted down in the bizarro counterpart to this feature, which I feel certain is The Worst Hand I Ever Played. I can see a producer figuring out exactly how they are going to document my facial tics after I have irreversibly blown the hand, how they are going to put my awful decisions into slow-motion to make them more dramatic, how they are going to throw some voice-over of a fake poker announcer (I wonder if bizarro Gabe Kaplan is available) to mock me and wonder aloud exactly what the hell I am doing. Maybe they'll throw some special effects in and riddle my hunched over, broken body with a slew of bullets to put me out of my misery before the hand even ends. Whatever my fate, I deserve the ridicule that comes with a play so stupid that I made it twice.

That's right. Twice. In the same hand. And it wasn't just some meaningless middle position hand in the 25/50 round, it was a hand that defined a whole night's worth of effort, that derailed any and everything that I had done until that point.

In other words, it was The Hand.

And I blew it.

Twice.

To get up to speed, read my previous post on how my tournament had gone. I'm now at the final table and we're seven-handed. Top five get paid, the good money is in the top three spots. I'm on a medium-ish stack, there are two stacks shorter, two really big stacks and three around the same as mine.

On The Worst Hand I Ever Played, I was in late position, fourth of seven to act preflop. The first two fold. The player to my right shoves for his last 4150 (I have a little more than 14k) and lo and behold, hallelujah, after suffering through scores of just brutal non-playable hands, I look down at J,J.

And here's where I short-circuited. Instead of taking the time (really it would have only taken seconds had I stopped to think) and assessing my options, I immediately just call. Not shove, just call.

Giant mistake #1, because the chip leader to my left and on the button, has now been priced in and his huge stack can afford the price without any worry. Not only that, but he could be, and probably is, playing any two cards here. Awesome.

Compounding my mistake, and proving to me that I'm a moron, the big blind decides that it is worth his while to get in and mix it up as well. So basically any flop can be dangerous to me, or so I think, conveniently forgetting that I have a PREMIUM HAND.

The horror, the horror.

The flop comes perfectly for me: 2,3,10 rainbow. The BB checks and...

I go all in and drag the pot!!!!

Um, no, wait. That's not what happened. Not at all. Because I, being an utter fool, check behind him and the button/big stack checks behind me.

The sheer stupidity of this play is mind-boggling. At this stage of the tournament, at this level of blinds (500/1000) I need this pot to have a chance to win. And they're offering it to me. They've forgiven my mistake of not isolating the all-in, they've added their own chips to the mix for me to take and I...FREAKING...CHECK.

Riddle me with those bullets right now.

Because a 4 came on the turn and the BB, not being an idiot like me, went all in. He had me covered and I folded, as did the button. He turns over A,5 for the wheel that he had drawn inside to because I had let him.

The all-in flipped over his losing A,Q and I just sat there, contemplating all the different ways that I could, and should, have won that pot. All the different ways that I had misplayed the hand. All the ways that I just wasted five hours getting to the position where I could have assured a cash, put myself in second in chips with six players left and all the ways that I am sometimes just plain dumb.

Needless to say, I bubbled out in sixth about 10 minutes later. No money for my effort, nothing but the hope, that small hope that I cling to, that it was behind me:

The Worst Hand I Ever Played.