Lodge Results for Sunday 02/05/06 - Week 13

There was a different format at The Lodge this week due to the Super Bowl. We played a shootout tournament where we started with 5 tables of 10 players and the first 2 places advanced to the final table. We also began with T800 in chips and 10/15 blinds as they do in the partypoker.com sit and goes. I was up and down the whole time I was in, but never more than doubled my stack. The blinds were advancing quickly and nobody was really going out at our table. By the time the blinds were 100/200, we still had 8 players so there were plenty of all-ins. I do recall a stupid mistake I made that cut my stack down to T400. I had pocket 3's and I did not raise preflop. Flop comes A23 and I bet. Everybody folds except for 1 caller. Turn is a blank and he goes all in. I knew when he did that, he could be holding 45 and I call and guess what? He turns over 45s and the board does not pair, nor do I get another 3 so I lose. I learned that I must raise low pocket pairs, but it is tough because they can get beat bad. However, I am not sure that hand if he would have folded because many people like suited connectors, even small ones.
Eventually my stack became only 1.5 times the big blind so I waited until I had a decent hand and went all in with A10o against pocket 7s. He caught his trips on the flop and I was done. Next week it is back to the normal format.