I HATE Ace-Queen

As always, I make notes when I am playing in a big event. One reason, it calms me, another, if I do well, I can use them to write about it, and I can use my notes to study my play. When I got home Tues. morning at about 2:30 AM from the main event of the Binion's Poker Classic, I was so upset that I shredded them, so now that I am ready to talk about it, I have to do it from memory.
After the first twenty minutes at table 22, seat 7, I knew I was at a tough table. There were two "Hot Shots", one to my immediate right and one, two to my left. We'll call them Hot Shot L and Hot Shot R or HS-L and HS-R. After several hours I literally felt like I was playing this tournament with one or the other of them standing with one foot on my neck, breathing, or making any move was nearly impossible. I did every possible thing I could to try and relieve myself from the pressure: positive thinking, ignoring, thinking plesant thoughts about my Mama, while trying to concentrate on my game. Nothing worked. It was very stressful, just to play each hand. If HS-R was the first to enter the pot, he raised every time. If he got a call, he put the pressure on post flop, if he got a raise, he called it and saw the flop. He won hands with a 4-6 suited and a Q-8 off-suit. His strategy worked for a few hours as he accumulated over $90,000. We started with a hefty. $30,000 which gave us a lot of play. HS-L, I called "Ringman" as he had rings on every finger including thumbs. I made out the card suits, a skull, a devil head, some kind of demon, and various other heavy ring designs. He was rather slight so I figured if anyone gave him any trouble, he could slug them with his heavy metal hands. Every time, which was not many, that HS-R did not enter the pot and I made a play for it, HS-L would re-raise me. Talking about being between a rock and a hard place! Ringman made a huge post flop raise with three players yet to call him, they folded, he laughed and showed them a 4-7. Keep it up, I thought. He did and was out within a few hours. One down and one to go, I hoped. I coasted from noon until dinner time with my chips ranging from my original $30,000 to $25 to $35K. Just waiting for the right hand and the right time. It was very tedious. Around 9 PM, HS-R had lost most of his money and seemed so upset. It was all I could do to keep my mouth shut about his horrible play. He called a huge bet around 9:30, as if he was done with this tournament and indeed, he was. I almost applauded. I swear every player at the table gave a sign of relief. New players filled our empty seats and around 11 PM, we had a pretty good, solid group. Only one got on my nerves. He was a young Englisman who knew everything about everything. How I longed for earplugs. I heard him whisper to his giggling friends that he loved marathon tournaments such as this, (we were to play 12 rounds, that equals to about 14 hours) because most of the other players, he continued, especially the old ones got very tired and started making mistakes. I could have puked a couple of hands later when I was in the big blind and my only opponent was a very solid player in the small blind. The flop came J-5-6. I had a 5. He checked, I bet and he called. I looked again at my cards, I had a J-5. I looked again at the board, it was J-6-6! Horrors! I made a mistake. On the turn, he checked, I checked and on the river, he bet and I folded. He showed me a 6. I was getting short staked so I went in ss mode and rebuilt while taking some gambles. I had no choice but to gamble because for two solid hours I had not picked up one playable hand. Sometime after 1 AM, I won a big pot with a semi-bluff. This is where I need my notes because I can't remember my hand or just what happened, but I had not gotten my chips arranged when I looked at A-Q. It looked so huge. Rather than making a raise, out of my mouth came "All-in." I actually was surprised when I heard myself say those words. I was in the Hot Shot squeeze play mode and immediately prayed for no action. A good player called my all-in with a pair of Jacks and I was out just a dozen players short of making the money. First place was almost $30,000 and in a flash that hope and dream was up in smoke and I got paid zip for my long hard day of work.
I can take bad-beats unless I put one on myself. I was so upset, I thought about retiring from poker forever. I had not been this upset or angry with myself in years because I had not make such a horid mistake in years. I preach to my students, "Do NOT go broke with a queen in your hand." TJ Cloutier told me years ago to beware of A-Q and A-K. They can look so powerful, but more tournament players go broke on those two hands than any other two-card combinations.
My poker retirement did not last too long as I have decided to go to Pendleton (one of my favorite places) for their Summer Poker Round-Up. It is a five-dayer with limit, no-limit and a HORSE competition. Buy-ins range fjust $150 and $200 but the Wildhorse Casino is adding $3,000 to each event. No stress, no pressure, nice folks, but please do me a favor - don't tell the Hot Shots of the poker world about my Pendleton tournaments! Hope to see you there 15-19! To add icing to this poker cake, a seven-day Mexican Riviera Cruise will be part of each tournament prize package!