19th in the Million / Rant About Stuff
So I started today at 12:45 for a special warm-up on Stars and ended 14 hours later with a 19th place finish in the Million. I don't even really have words to describe how disappointed I am with this. It takes so much luck to even get that deep that its pretty crushing to get 19th. I know to some people $3300 seems like a nice finish but when you play these stupid tournaments for a living and get close to a big score you have to make it count. This is the second Million I have gotten into the final 20 (other was on a different site) and I made one big play that will haunt me for a while. The big hand here took place with about 27 or so left.
Villain opens to t200k with around 2.8mill, I make it t525k out of the blinds with TT and he makes it t900k with 1.9m behind. At this point I am obviously pretty sure that he's got an absolute monster. However, he's a donkey and with implied odds I'm essentially looking at calling 375k into around 3.6m because I am positive he's donking off on the flop. Flop comes 9 high with 3 clubs and I checked, he bets t900k leaving himself t1m behind and like a donkey I think about it and shove with TcTx. He obviously snaps AcAx and I don't hit the miracle 1 outer. Its just such an easy fold and I knew it was. If I can't make it then I have no business calling preflop. I'd like to try to blame a few friends who on a quick inspection said to shove, but I can't even do that, its my call, I've played this for 8 hours and they are looking at it from a total vacuum, no history, no nothing. I generally find myself doing this deep in tournaments, where I make the right read and give in to any chirping that even hints at doing something differently. Perhaps this goes deeper then just this hand because it's happened before and I think it all stems from the fact that when it gets deep in tournaments I don't trust my own skills. I've had a lot of success and perhaps I don't think my talent at this game deserves said success so I underestimate my abilities in comparison to my peers. Until I can trust myself deep in a tournament to make a read and follow it I won't find the big success I've been searching for.
The other big thing that tonight reinforces in me, which I already knew full well, is how damn lucky you have to get to get deep in one of these huge tournaments. You need to fade all sorts of draws, avoid coolers, etc. To get this deep, just makes me realize how daunting a task it truly is and its a realization that comes with essentially no monetary benefit. If I won the damn thing and took home $200k, I'd still have this same realization, but I'd have $200k to help me forget about it. This is likely just a huge ramble but I really havent been this let down from poker in an extremely long time. I have found myself at a strange crossroads in my poker career since Vegas where I am asking myself how long I can actually do this for. I've been extremely fortunate to get a big score already and have a house and enough liquidity to possibly grow my real estate portfolio rather quickly, but my online roll is coming to a point where I may, at some time soon, need to make a decision between reloading some money from that which is allocated currently to grow my real estate investments, get staked, or possibly move on to another endeavor. Anyway, I apologize for the rant here, but tonight was truly one of those watershed moments in life where its' outcome can easily have much larger ramifications in life.
Thanks to all the support everyone gave me during the run. It is much appreciated. I have recorded the final 3 or so hours, without audio so perhaps in a week or so I can go over it and record some narration.
~Justin