Another poker update

The Player of the Year race isn't over yet, and will certainly get more interesting as we close out the year. On Tuesday, we had our regular $30 No Limit Hold'em multi-table tournament. We had about 32 players and I finished 6th place. Which resulted in only ~30 points. This means that the #1 player was still 40 points ahead of me.

Last night we had our regular Thursday $50 NLHE tournament. Only 23 players. Results follow...

I ended up winning which gave me 375 points to put me back at the #1 spot. The current leader board looks like:

1. The Professional, 1989 points
2. The Emperor, 1655 points
3. The Mouse, 1199 points

When it got down to heads up, I had a significant chip lead over my opponent (I'm guessing I had 90% of the chips). He finally had to push all-in with any two cards and although I really didn't have to look (I had "pot odds"), I had AKo and called. He showed 92o and I took the pot and the tournament down (much to the dissatisfaction of the now #2 player). When we were 3 handed, I actually got lucky with a suck-out. I was the chip lead and on the button. I have A6o. I put in a 3BB raise. The SB raises all-in. BB folds. I call. This was actually a bad call as I failed to notice how many chips the SB actually had. He had many small denomination chips that when added up would have hurt my big stack. He showed pocket 9's. The flop didn't help me. I hit a 6 on the turn which gave me 2 more outs in addition to my A. I suck out with an A on the river. If I had to replay this hand, I would have easily folded. Even though an Ace is strong 3 handed, he could have easily had a better kicker and also his chip stack would have put a big dent in mine if I had lost. The main reason I had called him was he was playing a bit loose at the final table showing several bluffs (not against me), so that made it too easy to call him as I figured he'd would have also pushed all-in with K high.

More interesting was a hand I played in the middle of the tournament. I was the chip lead (but not by a large margin) at my table. I'm UTG+1. UTG folds. I have pocket 8's. I put in a 3xBB raise. I believe there was one caller and the BB also calls. Flop is 752 rainbow. BB puts out a bet. I raise to 3x his bet. The other caller folds. BB pushes all-in for 4000 more (pot is probably about 2500). So I have to make a decision here. I have about 8000 in chips, so I could certainly call, but would lost half my remaining stack (starting stacks is 5000) and make me one of the shorter stacks. I have an overpair, so I'm only worried about the BB having a set or two pair or an over pair. If he had a set, he would have likely not bet out on the flop as he would have expected me to make a continuation bet since I was the preflop raiser. Similar logic for if he had two pair. If he had an overpair to my pocket 8's, he would likely have reraised me preflop. So I couldn't put him on a hand that would beat me. The only problem is that I've never played with this person before, so if he was inexperienced, he might not slow play a set or two pair on the flop. I go with my gut instead of my logic and folded the hand. He later admitted that he had just two overcards (although he thought he was ahead not knowing how strong a hand I had laid down). Even though I read the cards correctly, I just couldn't make the call because I had no idea how he played. In some ways this was a good lay down as a few hands later he doubled me up give me ~10000 in chips.