Poker: Getting Knocked Out in ONE Hand

So I was just playing a tournament on Full Tilt. As I'm sure you can figure out by this blogs title...I got knocked out on the first hand!

It may be one of the most unlikely thing to happen to you when playing a tournament, but it does, and will happen. Here is how it happened to me today.

I was playing a $10 buy-in tournament on Full Tilt. It was one of their "Mini-Series of Poker" games so there were like 6,000 plus people in the tourney. I started the game off on the button. I was dealt Ac 8c. It's not a great starting hand, but one I usually like to see a flop with, when the price isn't to steep. In this game, everyone started with 3,000 in chips. The blinds were at 10/20. I decided to just limp in and call the blind. 6 people at the table fold and its just me and 2 others. The other two players were in seats 3 and 4. Seat 3 called and seat 4 raised to 80. I called the 80, then seat 3 re-raised to 260. Both me and seat 4 called the 260. On a side note, by re-raising I now know that seat 3 has a top tier hand.

On the flop comes Ah 5c 2c. This is a great flop for me. I have top pair and the nut flush draw. Seat 3 is first to act and bets 600. Seat 4 folds his hand. Now its back on me and here is where i make my huge mistake. Having top pair and a flush draw, puts me in a great position, but not the best that it could be. You have to remember that seat 3 had re-raised pre-flop. He could have easily done that with AK or AQ. So at this point what I should have done was just call the 600 bet, but that is not what I did. I raised it to 1500. In less than a second my opponent pushed all in. At this point I know im up against AK or possibly even AA, either way I'm behind and I have almost 60% of my chips in the pot. Since I have the nut flush draw I knew I had outs still. It was still the first hand and I could have laid the hand down, but with such a big time drawing hand, I just couldn't let it go. I called and put all of my chips at risk. Seat 3's hand was exactly what I thought it to be, Ad Kc. What really hurt was that he had the king of clubs which took away one of my outs. Needless to say, the turn came 7s, and the river 10d. I missed my flush, didn't make two pair, and I was booted from the match just as soon as I started.

What I should have done was just call the 600 bet on the flop. This would have allowed me to see the turn card cheaply. When the turn did not make my hand for me it would have made laying the hand down much easier. A drawing hand with only one card to go is much less attractive than with two. That isn't what happened and it ended up costing me the tournament in just one hand. Learn from my mistakes people. Don't over play your drawing hands. Top pair with the nut flush draw is a great hand to have, but play it smart and try not to put in too much of your stack, unless you hit your hand of course. In that case you have my permission to go nuts.