Lack of patience leads to early exit

Earlier this month, I played in the weekly $180-buy-in no-limit hold ‘ em tournament at my local casino. Around 70 players participated, and we were down to the final 12, with the final six getting paid. I was sitting with 120,000 in chips when the blinds were at 2,0004,000 plus an ante of 500. My chip stack was well above average. I busted out in 12th place. Two decisions led to my demise, neither of which was particularly wrong. Here’s what happened.

We were playing six-handed at each table, but my table seemed to have all of the big stacks. Five of us were over 100,000, while the short stack was around 50,000. At the other table, just one player was above the six-figure mark, while three players had less than 50,000.

In one hand at my table, action folded to the player in the small blind, who happened to be the short stack, and he moved all in. I looked down at As 9s in the big blind and debated for a few moments before calling. I knew that such a hand was likely to be ahead of most of the hands he’d move all in with ( known as his “shoving range”), and I’d be about 50/50 against a good part of his range

As it turned out, he held 3d 3c, and it was a coin flip. Unfortunately for me, the board ran out a dry 7d 6c Jh 2c 5d, and I sent over nearly half my chips. Just like that, I had flip-flopped positions with the player I had been up against, and I was the short stack at our table.

Not long after that, I was down to 48,000 when I looked down at Ah Jh under the gun and decided to move all in for my last 12 big blinds. According to SnapShove, a poker app that calculates different scenarios and tells you which hands you should shove with, this hand was well within my shoving range. In fact, I should have shoved with any pocket pair, any suited ace down to A-3, and hands as low as 10-8 suited.

After I shoved, the player in the big blind, who was sitting with around 130,000 in chips, called with As Qd, which had me crushed. The board ran out an unhelpful 5c 7d Kd 7c 8h, and just like that I was on the rail.

Neither of these calls was mathematically bad, per se, but given the circumstances, I wasn’t happy. Instead of coinflipping with the A-9, I could have just folded and preserved my stack. Then, instead of jamming, I could have raised to 10,000 and maybe gotten away from the hand when faced with a three-bet.

I made the choice to mix it up, but upon reflection, I think the better course of action would have been to sit back, pick better spots and simply wait out the short stacks at the other table. That would have putme in a good position at the final table of 10, but alas I went down another road and didn’t make it that far.