Session #52 - OMAHA!!!!

Well, normally an $8 win wouldn't be much to talk about but this was a $20 + $2 Omaha hi-lo split tourney that I entered myself into on Poker Stars this evening and I had to write it up because I was actually quite happy with how I did. For almost the entire length of the tournament, I hung in there with a short stack of chips. I played a very tight conservative game with occassional step-outs to steal blinds and a couple of well-timed bluffs. With around 40 players left I was able to make a move at the right time and got myself up into the #9 position in chips which was as far as I would get chip-wise.

There were two hands that I regret not getting involved in that could have given me the impetus I needed but looking back, I still like my reasonings for folding out of both hands. If I had been right, I would have been out of the tournament.

The first hand had me in 2nd-to-last position with JJ44 with around 2500 in chips. The blinds were at 400/800 and I was going to go all-in and steal the blinds with a small blanket of security with two made pairs to back me up. However, it got called and raised so I folded out. If I had called I would have flopped a set of fours and eventually taken down the pot (around 8000 chips). But if you think about it, with a cold caller and a raiser I had no choice but to get out without any low potential to my hand.

The other hand I folded out of had me with A9xx and the flop came down KK9 and it got checked around with three of us in the pot, me on the button. The river is a four or something and small blind bets and the other guy calls. Now I stopped and thought about this for a minute. With second pair, top kicker I would have called the small blind but the middle caller gave me pause to consider. Did he have a king? Did he have an overpair in his hand? Again, if I had called I would have been crippled so I erred on the side of caution and folded. Eventually, a J9 took down the hand so I would have had him outkicked and had a substantial chip stack.

But in the end, I was very happy with my performance and with my 21st place finish out of a pool of 216 entrants I can hold my head high.

Here's the obligatory congrats email from Poker Stars:

PokerStars Tournament #22780708, Limit Omaha Hi/Lo
Buy-In: $20.00/$2.00
216 players
Total Prize Pool: $4320.00
Tournament started - 2006/04/16 - 00:15:00 (ET)

Dear Xorply,

You finished the tournament in 21st place.
A $30.24 award has been credited to your Real Money account.

You earned 73.97 tournament leader points in this tournament.
For information about our tournament leader board, see our web site at http://www.pokerstars.com/tlb_tournament_rankings.html


Congratulations!
Thank you for participating.

---------------------------------

Sessions Total = +$8.

Live MTD earnings are -$95 CAN.
Live YTD earnings are -$411 CAN.

Online MTD earnings are $640 US.
Online YTD earnings are +$724 US.