Pawned by a Fish !

Last night, I was trying to qualify for the Grand Prix tournament over at Pokerroom which had 50K guaranteed by playing in a qualifying satellite tourney.

Played well throughout until we were down to four. Only two got seats. There was this guy over to my right who just wouldn't shut up during chat. He kept making inane comments about how good he was and how he was going to outplay everyone.

Normally I don't really mind this stuff as its par for the course to have a weirdo like him in every table. On one hand where I was BB, this same guy just completed his SB. I pushed with an A5 suited. He showed AK and I was a huge underdog and lost the huge pot as we had almost even chips at that point.

What got to me was his comment afterwards : "Knew you would do that". And then he kept on prattling again about how some of the young guys never learned their lessons.

After I bust out. I stopped playing and analyzed my play. Did I really make a wrong move ? Did all his chatting affect me negatively to make that push ? Did I telegraph the move such that he had a good guess about my range ? I had about 10xBB at that point. Down to four, on the bubble, and I would never make a flat out bluff on that play. I would have done the same exact play for any A-rag card, two face cards and any pocket pair for some insurance just in case he called back.

It just so happened that he had AK when I made the push. If I had a pocket pair and he made the same trap. I would have been slightly ahead and busted him out on that hand.

But I did learn a lesson for next time. Since he was a weak-tight player, an alternative would have been to just raise 3xBB and folded after his push. Just didn't use reads and automatically played it aggressive at that point like I normally do.

You know what the kicker was. I sharkscoped him after the game and miracles of all miracles. He was a losing player with a negative forty something ROI.

Hyuk Hyuk. But thank you for the lesson. I'll see you next time.