I'm playing a live tournament sponsored by a business. 140 entries. 14 players left and I'm short stacked after loosing a big pot that could easily qualify as another post. Not into bad beat stories, so I'll spare you the details. We'll just say it was one of those 1 in 1000 beats. Anyway, I'm short stacked with T500c. I'm in MP. Big blind is 100. UTG raises to 300. He plays a lot of pots, often aggresive pre-flop, but passive post flop. UTG +1 calls. He is the chip leader and isn't folding at this point in the tournament. It's folded to me and I look down at A :club:T
. This might be the best hand I'll get before the blinds and I assume I have the two players beat, which is hard to believe holding AT, but I feel pretty good about my chances, so I put my 500 in. Everyone folds to the big blind, who has just come to the table. He has an above average chip stack. He puts a chip on his cards, and decides to raise, making it 1000 straight which is about 20% of his stack. UTG is really frustrated, yet calls, andUTG +1 calls without hesitation. The flop comes 8
8
6
. Big blind checks, as does UTG, as does UTG +1. Turn is the 7
. While I'm thinking I might have a little hope, the big blind checks, and UTG bets 1000. UTG +1 raises it to 2500. Big Blind pushes all-in for around 4000, and I stand-up, and look at the prize breakdown to see what I get for 14th. UTG can't believe it and finally mucks his hand. UTG +1 calls the 1500 extra. I'm putting the blind on AA, KK, QQ and UTG +1 on a flush draw, but wouldn't be surprised if he has a made hand. I say, "all right guys, flip 'em up, let's see how dead I am." Neither wants to flip over their hands though. The dealer puts the river out there, a 4
. I pick up my hand and declare my ace high, kind of sarcastically thinking it's worthless. With a final board of 8
8
6
7
4
, they both shake their heads and the big blinds sheepishly shows J
T
for a jack high. UTG +1 shows K
Q
for King high. I'm flabbergasted that my AT is good as I scoop in my now 2000+ in chips, having quadroupled up. I look up at the big blind who's talking about all his outs, which in actuality were only the J for the win. As I scan over to UTG +1, who doesn't really care that I won the main pot, because he now has 5500 more chips than he started the hand with, having won the side pot with K high. Then I notice UTG who is obviously very upset, and I don't need to ask, because I realize he would have won the entire pot. It is then that UTG +1 asks him, "So, what did you have? Would you have won?" UTG says, "I had ....... QQ ......" He then proceeds to explain rather rudely the concept of the dry pot bluff. Neither the big blind, who was collecting 14th place prize money, nor UTG +1 thought they were in the wrong. UTG thought I was the luckiest ...... in the world, and I couldn't agree more. Frankly, I was surprised the UTG had QQ, but felt he was telling the truth. Everybody told him he was stupid for the way he played the hand, which I also silently agreed with. Just calling preflop with QQ was bad, not betting the flop was bad, folding was questionable, though when you've been reraised twice after betting out, QQ might not look so good. Anyway you cut it, I was a lucky guy. This wouldn't have meant much if I didn't end up winning a few key pots later and end up heads up with UTG +1, a 2-1 chip dog. I got even with him in chip when he went on tilt after I checked the river in postition having a K
9
with a board of Q
7
6
9
5
. He had 8
9
for the straight flush. I didn't tell him, but I didn't actually check because I put him on a monster like a straight flush or the A
. I checked because I had misread my hand which I don't do very often. I don't like looking back at my cards and in my head I thought I had the K
. A mental mistake actually saved me, but he didn't know that. He simply went on tilt after that talking about his luck, saying "who checks a king high flush?" I simply told him that he could have easily had the ace
. I finally got him all-in holding top two pair and him drawing dead. So, I went from a very small 14th place cash out to a $1000 win all because I got lucky when two guys decided to dry pot bluff their draws. What is the luckiest you've been in a tourney?
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