For a very long time I had a big hole in my game that was if I formulated a plan for how I was going to play a hand, I would stick with the plan even when the situation changed into one I hadn't anticipated. Somewhere along the way I have largely fixed that hole, but tonight it killed me in a sng that I had a very good chance to win.
With 6 players left and 150/75 blinds I had the chiplead. One other player had almost exactly the same chips as me (just 60 less), while the other four had a lot less and were in dire straights.
I got dealt AKo under the gun. I made my standard 3BB raise, and decided that if a single player played back at me I would put him all-in or (more likely) call his all-in. That plan was formulated on the premise that I would be up against one of the short stacks. I figured they would be likely to play back with anything, and AKo looks pretty good against a player who could have anything (plus even if he had a great hand, the worst position if I lost was an average stack)
But it wasn't a short stack who played back at me, it was the guy with almost the same chips as me. He raised it up to 1050, and before I could even think about the implications I was all-in. He called and turned over TT.
Now AKo vs TT is not a horrible match up, not nearly as bad as it could have been. But I felt really stupid for not folding when he came over the top. There is a saying that the best way to "win the coin flips" is to do your best to avoid them. Before the hand started I was pretty much guarenteed to money, and was the favorite to win. Losing 3BB would have only slightly changed that. But putting my whole tourney on the line, on a coin flip, when I had no need to was such a waste.
As I'm sure you can guess, I lost the flip, and was out the next hand. Though perhaps that is for the best; I am sure I wouldn't be thinking so hard about this if I hit an ace and went on to win.
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