Anatomy of a Bustout

I’ve played hundreds of no limit hold em tournaments, and I’ve only won one. So every time but one, my final hand was a losing one. The more tournaments you lose, the more you realize your downfalls can be categorized into a few standard scenarios:

The Coinflip
The most boring of tourney exits, the coinflip is usually a pair vs two overcards. Ace-king against two queens or jacks is the most common matchup. I’ve started calling races like A8 against KQ or top pair vs a flush draw/overcard “coinflips” as well. Usually ace king or ace-queen is involved if it is a preflop matchup; this is how the nicknames “The Boneyard” and “The Anna Kournikova (looks good but never wins) were spawned for ace-king.

The Cooler
Usually this one ends with the player walking away shaking his head wondering if he “could have gotten away from the hand.” The answer for a good player is usually no and for weaker players, often yes. Typical scenarios for “The Cooler” are kings running into aces, set under set, two pair vs a set, ace-king vs a set on an ace high flop, flush under flush, etc.

The Bad Beat
Too numerous to name, bad beats might actually be the most common way for tight players to bust out of tournaments. Bad beats range from 60-40s (such as ace-king losing to jack-ten all-in preflop), to flush draws hitting, to big pairs losing to bad aces, to ugly pair under pair suckouts.

The Really Bad Beat
These are beats where you are more than 80% to win a big pot when the money goes in, but the son of a bitch sucks out and steals it when you least expected. You watch helplessly as your ship crashes into the rocks, then falls over on its side into the icy depths.

The Desperation Shove
There comes a time in most tournaments where you’re forced to go all-in before the flop with some sort of marginal holding, just praying everyone will fold. You always know you’re in bad shape when you receive a caller on these desperation jams. You can only hope to suck out. The real question you ask yourself when walking out is how did you get down to the desperation shove stack.

The Failed Re-steal
This one is pretty standard for the online donkament specialist. Someone raises in a spot where you think they might have a wide range, so you shove in behind hoping they will fold. But this time they have a real hand and call you down, and you’re forced to turn over a trailing hand and hope for the suckout.

The Bluff Gone Bad
Nits like me rarely bluff off their whole stack, but it does happen on occasion. Far more often, the failed bluff results in the loss of most but not all of our chips.

The Call-off
Nits like me usually avoid this one as well. The call-off is when you make a big call hoping your opponent is bluffing, only to be shown a hand that leaves you drawing ultra-slim or dead. This might be the worst way to exit a tournament. The call-off generally results in at least four hours of mandatory sequestered time for the victim. If a friend exits on a call-off, don’t bother discussing the hand with him for at least a day. He doesn’t want to talk about it. Famous call-offs include Kevin McBride vs. Scotty Nguyen in the last hand of the 1998 WSOP and Kenny Tran against Jon Kalmar late in last year’s main event.

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I'm getting tired of losing poker tournaments. Still got another couple weeks to get that big win.