So…I fired up PokerStars today and played in a double shootout to sunday’s million. Now I’m not a big fan of shootouts as there’s usually one dude at the table sucking out like the best vacuum cleaner you can buy, but hell…why not.

So we started off eight handed and I played pretty tight. The donks fooled around a little and traded chips back and forth. So after roughly half an hour we’re down to 6 players and I’m the short-stack. I play some decent hands though and chip up pretty quickly. Once we’re three-handed I’m the chipleader at the table, 2nd in chips is roughly 1k behind and the short-stack sits at just above 1k. The 2nd in chips takes out the short-stack and is slightly ahead once we enter heads-up. We trade chips back and forth for a while and then he slowly grinds away at me. I make a decent comeback and have a 2:1 chiplead. We play back and forth and he sucks out a flush on the river to get back to even. Two hands later it’s all over. I have A10 on the button and three-bet it. He calls. Flop comes down JJ10 two diamonds. He leads out, I call. turn is the 4d…he bets out small again. Now I’m a little concerned with the flush, but then again it’s two-handed…so maybe he’s got the jack? Hmm…river is an unsuspecting 3c…he pushes….

Now I’m stuck in decision land: basically two hands have me beat – three jacks or a flush…didn’t put him on Jacks earlier or I would have folded…so…is he really on the flush or on the stone cold bluff? Decision, decision. I call…and sure enough he shows KdQd…s00000ted!

So I’m out in 2nd at my table (10th overall – 8 at the final table)…damn! I need to go over my play again before making any bold claims, but basically I think the following statement is valid: I won too little with monsters (Qx – board QQx, J9o – board JJx; although the deck is pretty crippled here, but can’t he have the x and don’t believe me one time?) and lost to two suckouts…not bad-beats…suckouts…the first one was the diamond flush on the river (cough) to bring him back to even and the second one was the last hand (diamond flush on the turn, cough, should that have been a sign?)…oh well…DAMN! 😉