Another SnG night with 2-for-2 third-place finishes.  +$18 for 90 minutes is pretty solid, but I feel like I haven’t learned anything from my past “failures”, assuming you consider four thirds in a row “failures”.  I mean, how would you feel if you owned a horse that came in third in every Triple Crown race?  Would you be happy you beat most of the field, won some money, and that you were profitable, or would you be disappointed that you ALMOST won a lot more money?

I’m struggling with that sense of disappointment with winning sessions of SnG.  I don’t think I’ve had the chip lead with three players left in any of the last four tourneys.  Last night, I went into the final three at chip deficits of 3300/3100/1600 and 3500/3100/1400.  Tough when you’re doubled by both of the other players.  They tend to steal your blinds and bully you until you’re forced to go in with subpar hands.  I never got above 2000 in either of the games, and went out with juggernaut preflop hands of 33 (flopped a set, rivered by an open-end straight) and 76s (flop was A6x, turn was A, river was 6 for the lower boat to ATo). 

More so than any other situation, I’ve seen cooperative play by the big stacks when they have ONE person who is shortstacked in a three-handed game and they are relatively close in chips.  Since the shortstack is putting in a blind 67% of the time and will only have the best preflop hand 33% of the time, they can take turns picking off his chips with big raises.  Of course, I’ve done the same thing in their shoes… or at least I think I did…  It’s been a long frickin’ time since I was in their shoes.

After reviewing all four of the tourneys, I can honestly say that I played reasonably well.  I did, after all, cash in all four.  My late game play didn’t have any major holes, though in each tourney, I can probably pin down ONE hand that crippled my chip stack enough to put me in catch-up mode shorthanded.  Last night, with four playing and me second in chips, I made a loose raise over the short stack to put him all-in.  Unfortunately, he had AQ to my AJ and I dropped from second to third.  Then, he had the gall to lose his chips to the guy in second.  This was like Monopoly where you land on someone’s hotel on the light blues, pay your money, and watch the same guy go bankrupt by landing on the reds, and see your cash shift to the guy who owns the dark greens.  (How’s that for a convoluted, though colorful, metaphor?)

In the other tourney last night, with three left, I limped from SB with JTs.  When the flop came AA5 with two clubs, I bet out kinda halfheartedly representing an Ace.  BB raised me back enough to put me all-in.  I really didn’t put him on the A since he didn’t raise preflop as we had been doing (in retrospect, I should've read him for the Kx of clubs or small pockets).  But I pussed out and folded, conceding 2/3 of my stack and permanently crippling me.  I need to push all-in at that point, knowing that one more orbit would blind me out anyway, and that I needed that 6-outer (or runner-runner straight) to stay alive.  Would I have won the hand?  I don’t know, but it would’ve been better to go out with guns blazing than all-in three hands later with 76s.