greed

I was playing the best poker I've played in a while. 27-seat 50K SnG. Doubled through a fish who overplayed his top pair. Crippled him with a set of kings (with two on the board) when he couldn't fold a straight draw and rivered a pair of queens. Another guy slow-played a set of fives and let me suck out a straight playing 42 in the big blind - doubled through him, too. Busted a short stack when the river ace made him top pair and me two pair. I was riding high with the chip lead.

I lost about a quarter of my stack on two hands, including one where I gambled that my opponent did not have the one hand I could put him on that beat me, and he did: K9, with a queen-high straight on the board. The river nine counterfeited the nine in my hand, he bet half the pot after I checked, and based on his earlier betting I figured there was no way he had a king unless he also had a nine. There were two left, I called, and he had one of them.

I won a few and lost a few, never for much, and found myself at the final table in 2nd chip position. I picked up a couple of pots and was drawing closer to the chip lead. On the fifth hand of the final table, the chip leader (8365) min-raised to 400 in UTG+1. I held AK in the cutoff with 6847, and raised it up to 1200. It folded around to him and he went all in.

I don't know if this is just 20-20 hindsight, but I feel like I should have folded. There were eight of us left with five cash spots, I would have still been in good shape, and my 1200 wouldn't have given him a commanding lead or anything. Most importantly, I hadn't seen him play enough to judge what he had in his hand. I instinctively felt that the hands that beat me would have been raised higher in the first place, and I hadn't had a chance to see how this guy played strong hole cards. It felt like a steal.

I could feel the warm embrace of chip dominance around my shoulders.

I could taste the heady bouquet of victory.

I got greedy.

I called and he turned over AA. Scheisse.