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Disciplined Play Pays Out

Played in a tourney at my friend RJ’s house again on Thursday, and coming off of a losing trip to Vegas and some mediochre performance over the past few weeks, I backed off a bit on my experimentation with aggression and played my time-tested style.

Early on I got a bad beat and my discipline really helped me dodge a bullet. I had :Qd :9d and the flop was :9c :7c :7d. I like my two pair, but decided to just put out a third-pot feeler bet; got two callers.

Next card was :9h — I’d made my full house on the turn. I felt pretty confident that I had the best hand at that point, and not being worried about any straights or flushes (actually hoping somebody would hit a straight or flush) I checked. Got one quarter-pot bet and a fold and I smooth called.

Heads up now, and the river was :Th and being first to act, I checked and he bet the same amount as the turn. I came over the top & tripled his raise. He called & re-raised and I only called. I thought about going all-in, but felt a little uneasy for some reason. Good instinct — he turned over :Td :Ts; a bigger boat. That knocked me down to about 1/3 stack, but rather than going on tilt, I just took a deep breath and stuck to my plan.

Wasn’t much later that I doubled up with trip queens and eventually became chip leader going into heads-up for the game. I’m first to say that my heads-up play isn’t all it could be, and that coupled with a beat-by-kicker situation for a huge pot (my :Kd :8h got outkicked by his :Ac :8d) I only took second place.

And while I was hungry for first, I was very satisfied with second, particularly after that early clobbering.

Looks like another game tomorrow night, plus my monthly poker night is this Saturday, so I hope to continue that solid play over the next few days.

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