Every afternoon there's a game with a $50 top prize at 1:00 p.m. U.S. ET. The blinds go up every five minutes -- well, most of the time. On Monday, the blind clock became stuck after the half-hour break! The blinds remained at 100/200 for the rest of the game.
"I came to a turbo tourney, and a cash game broke out," we wrote at one point. Yet the field did diminish -- much more slowly than usual. Some gave up and were forfeited for inactivity; others grew tired and simply pushed with anything to move on. We had nothing else to do, so we resolved to keep playing patiently.
We hit several huge pots during the game, and at one point had more than 97,000 chips -- leading the field by more than 20,000. At that point, we started playing "fast and loose" with big pre-flop raises and pricey bluffs on the river. Our goal was to pad the lead and knock other players out. A few big losses changed all that -- but we still made the final table.
At that point, the people who wanted the money were clear. Players with tens of thousands of chips wanted to make minimum bets (still 200, remember). We tried to provoke things to move the game along, but several moves went badly. Finally with seven players left, we were dealt A-A and dared to go all-in with about 11,000 chips. Two players pushed with us to call! We felt good about this.
One opponent had Q-Q. Another had 7-7. But a third Queen came on the turn, with no third Ace. Our big play failed, and we were eliminated in seventh place -- with only the top five making money.
The lesson for us, after 5:50 of online poker? That we're sometimes not really as patient as we think we are -- especially when we have a lot of chips and a big lead. We want to drive on to victory. In a sit-n-go with rising blinds, that's easy. In circumstances like this, it certainly wasn't. Which reminds us:
Better a patient man than a warrior.... -- Proverbs 16:32
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