Res Ipsa Poker

I'm forgetful.

Forgetful at least when it comes to poker knowledge, that is. Which means that I frequently have to re-learn stuff that should be second nature by now.

It also means that every once in a while I just have to shake my head and think, "why didn't I see this sooner?" Call them blinding flashes of the obvious.

On Wednesday, I was up way too late, playing the Mookie despite knowing better. I'm meandering along in the third hour with a below average stack. I think at that point I had about 3,800 chips. Blinds were still in the manageable range, something like 150/300.

I'd gotten that far without anything even remotely resembling a premium hand. So when I received QQ in early (UTG+1) position, I was excited. Excited, I said. With exclamation points (!!!).

I was less excited when the UTG player raised to 900. Hmm.

Here's where I had the revelation of the obvious - I didn't HAVE to shove!

BAM!

Shoving all in NOT MANDATORY!

Wow!

I almost did shove, though. That was what my reflex action and inclination was. It's easy, it requires no thought and I'd have been favored against almost all possible holdings. In about 99.99% of the blogger donkaments I've played in the last three months, I would have just shoved. And I'd owe everyone another dollar.

But no. Not THIS time.

I didn't shove. I also didn't flat call, which would have been stupid imo.

Instead, I just re-raised. Granted that it was for most of my stack and I probably selected the wrong amount (2400, leaving 1400 behind), but I didn't shove. You can certainly make a case that shoving would have been the right play with my stack size - I won't argue with that - the point is that I don't HAVE to be Shovey McShoverson at all times.

Such an obvious concept, but one which I've allowed myself to forget. Really.

And you wonder why I suck at poker.

Anyway, in the results-oriented portion of this post, I'll tell you that the button (who may have been the notorious Ricky424, I forget) flat called and the original raiser tanked and folded after thinking for a while. An ace was the first card in the door and I was out like a thief in the night, short-stacked but alive. I doubled up once but busted in 35th when my A9s ran into the big blind's AKo. It happens -- and I didn't end up coming here to rant about losing with queens to ACE-F'ING-RAG...


I ended up watching some of the BBT2 Tournament of Champions last night. Congrats to jeciimd for taking it down and winning the trip to Australia. He must have played brilliantly in the endgame - when I shut down with ten or so players left he was still pretty short stacked (and had been). I would have definitely picked Huntsvegas Wes at that point.

That's it for now, I gotta go see if Fuel has a post up on how he busted out. I'm expecting something hoyesque, maybe even wafflerantilicious.