Why does it always go down like this?
I am not a great MTT player. I'm OK. I have studied on it a bit, and have most of the concepts down, but I know my limitations in this regard. Me buying into $50 and up MTTs would not be +EV. Still, I like to take my shot every once in a while at something for $10 or less. Never a satellite. My schedule is not usually predictable enough to play the prize tourney if I were to win the satellite, so I just stick to regular ol' for-the-cash MTTs.
Such was the case last night. I decided to play in an Absolute $2 NLHE MTT. I registered and then found, to my surprise, that they capped the field at 400. There was no mention of this in the lobby, but that's OK. I just found it odd.
It was a strange little tourney. A freezeout, no rebuys. The first 100 donks were out by level 3. I was card dead for just about all of it. I kept getting short-stacked and pushing some crap like A7o that would hold up and give me another orbit or two. My big break came with about 100 left (63 make the money). I had QJs and ended up all-in pre-flop. I got squoze and had too much pot equity not to make the call in a 4-way pot. I found I was up against TT, 88, and JTo. The flop came T84 and I was way behind, but I rivered my 9 and took down a huge pot that put me in 7th place at the time.
That was all she wrote, though. I proceeded to get jack and shit for hands for the next hour. The bubble broke, and then the next level and I still had chips, but I'm just blinding away. With 20 players remaining, I am the short stack. I push first in with A5o, and the BB, a huge stack, has to call with anything. He shows K3o. The board comes 458 2 A. IGHN.
I would estimate that 80%+ of the time I get put out of an MTT, I have the better hand when I get my chips in. Is that normal? It seems like it should not go down like that, but I swear it does. I realize that part of the art of winning an MTT is dodging the suckouts and having a bit of luck, but I never seem to be able to pull that part of it off. Just a general observation. 20/400 is not bad given that my distribution of cards was below average for 3+ hours. I never saw a pocket pair above 99. My vp$ip was probably about 12%. 20/400 was pretty much a miracle in that situation, but still, I go out to some cheesy crap at the end - as always. Grrrr. Grrrrr. Grrrrr.