The Poker Mag

This was another hand from my recent live game, and as it transpired, was the hand that put my opponent on the brink of elimination. After a tournament of amazing hands and plays, I had hung on to survive in the early stages from as little as 300 chips, and one hand from that part of the tournament returned to me when I was heads up at the final table. I am not usually one for superstition, but given the nature of the game that evening, and the fact that I was pressuring my opponent preflop to try and overturn a slight defecit in the chip counts, I pushed all in with (Jc,8c).

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This hand had trebled me up earlier in the tournament when I was all in for 700 chips, and as I sat at the final table with 48,000 I felt that playing it aggressivley heads up, would allow me to pick up the blinds preflop. My opponent had only flat called and so I didn’t feel her hand was very strong. The fact was though, that she was slow playing a monster of (A,A) and just waiting for me to continue with my preflop aggressive play. Needless to say, my all in was instantly called.
Whatever had happened up to that point in the tournament, it had always seemed that somehow, I had survived, and so part of me still felt, even as the flop didn’t seem to help me in the slightest, that a miracle would happen. Sure enough, something mirculous did indeed happen, as I first picked up an inside straight draw on the turn, then hit my four outer on the river as the (5d) fell. I immediately apologised to my opponent as getting lucky is not the way I would rather win. But after the way the tournament had unfolded, I somehow knew that the story was never going to end with me finishing second place.
Oddly enough, I had hit running cards to make a miraculous straight, and that was the exact same way in which my chipstack had initially been almost wiped out by an opponent, when I was holding (K,K) early in the tournament.

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