Bickmat's Razz Poker journey

Haven't played much but got some time in this weekend. Had a few bad sessions with some cash games where I just kept getting drawn out on which is always frustrating.

I was in a $10 razz tournament and learned a good lesson by making fatal mistake late in the tournament. I was playing very well for all of the tournament and was in the top 10-20% of the field all the way up to the end. As the blinds went up the small stacks started having to go all in with a premium hand and the big stacks had the ability to call them down fairly light which resulted in a lot of see saw action and some of the big stacks doubling up to become monsters. This in turn allowed the now monster stacks to play fairly aggressively against the rest of the field.

As this was happening I had been playing super tight as I waited for the small stacks to be gobbled up. Unfortunately a few bricked hands and I was getting down to 18k which is precariously close to the felt for this part of the tournament. I knew I had to make a move sooner rather than later to have any sort of chance to make it to the final table.

The mistake I made was that I forgot to pay attention to the bubble. I ended up going all in against a monster hand with a premium hand against a similar size stack. He bricked twice on 3rd and 4th streets but was pot committed and ended up drawing me out and boucing me out in 19th place. However, after I looked at the people left in the tourney I realized that there where 4-5 people that would have been eliminated by the blinds in the next two to four rounds. I could easily have made it to the bubble before making an all in move.

Now this was just a $10 tournament so not much was lost but it's the princible that counts. Besides it always hurts playing all that time to end up with nothing. A $20 consolation prize would have at least eased the pain and it waiting 2 or 3 rounds would not have had a material impact on whether I reached the final table or not.

Cash games where pretty ugly I had actually dropped down to $350 at one point. The problem here is that $400 is my cut off point for the $1/$2 tables. When I get below $400 I drop down to the .5/1 tables which is just a pain to grind out. The play is a bit easier but the rake is pretty murderous. Main goal is to hit $600 so I can start playing the 2/4 tables.