Our number 1 and 3 players both busted in the early rounds of the $10,000 buy-in event, here's how:

Shawn Rice (WestTexasMan) holds 1010 in early position, raises, gets called by a very loose player. Flop comes 944, Shawn checkraises his opponent all-in. The other guy goes into thte tank for a bit, then calls with AK. The A on the river ends Shawn's day. Pretty horrible call - Shawn said he was quite sure the guy had AK or AQ, or maybe a hand like 77 or 88. Better luck next time.

Our #1 ranked player took an even worse beat. brsavage holds AA, raises preflop in late position, one limper calls. Flop comes ten high, his caller bets out, and savage pushes all in. The early position guy calls, flipping over a measley K10. A King on the river seals savage's fate, and another excellent player finds a landmine.

These guys are paying $10,000 to make calls like this. Seems absurd, but that's how they roll it down here in Tunica. Good luck to the rest of our ranked players still in the event, we'll have another update later tonight!

I disagree that these players overplayed their hands after the flop. The object of tournament poker is to get your chips in with the best hand, and make it difficult for a weaker hand to call. One doesn't pick up high pocket pairs that often, so when you do, and you read that they've held up after the flop, you've got to play aggressively. If both players slowplay, and let their opponent make their hand on the river, then they're going to get called and lose the pot anyway. This way, they put a lot of pressure on their opponent, and more often than not, if they do get a call, they double up. If I'm in the same situation I play it the same way.

I'm gonna disagree with Dumb Walrus here and say I like the plays by both Shawn (westtexasman) and Chris (brsavage). Both of these guys have a style that differs from the one you're talking about here. They both play to win big pots when they think they're ahead, even if they don't have a monster. They want to build that big stack, and they aren't afraid to bust out if they think they have a real good shot at getting the chips they need to go far in a tournament. Shawn got all his chips in as a 3-1 favorite, and Chris got all his chips in as a 4-1 favorite. They had that good of a chance to build a good sized stack at that point in the tournament.

The way you are describing things is like a scared online tournament player. I am sure both Shawn and Chris slept well with the way they played and rightly so, when you have the best hand sometimes putting all the chips in the middle is a big sign for the other player to get out. It was not like they were forced to call.

Well, the hand actually played out a much different way..... the whole situation basically boiled down to KYP (know your player). This player had been raising and reraising with what i would consider horrifically bad hands... with the blinds at 100-200 he raised to 650 utg... i looked down at two black aces in the small blind and reraised a decent amount to 1850.... knowing that would probably be just the right amount for him to call.... he did, and the flop came 10 5 3 ..... I bet 2000, and HE MOVED IN ON ME! I thought for about 2.3 seconds and knew I had an easy call. He was a bad player, and I knew that if he had a set he would not played his hand as fast as he did... I made the correct decision, and when he turned over K 10 offsuit i was amazed at how poorly he had played this hand... and then of course the bad beat came.

It never ceases to amaze me that poor play happens even at the highest levels... but that's poker. The silliness of it all is that i had reraised a pot and got two callers (the original raiser and a flat caller). I had KK, and 3 handed we saw a flop of Q 8 7. I bet out, the second caller raised, and the third player moved in! Yuck! I had an easy decision, and mucked the kings... I just wish the second raiser had called so i could learn what i folded my hand to....

Gl guys,

Chris. (brsavage)

Just to quickly reply to that reply, yes, it is a question of strategy, and yes, there is more than one way to win tournament poker. The method I favor best is to be aggressive with your big hands, because weak players DO call when they shouldn't, and that gives you the opportunity to grab all their chips, rather than milk them a few at a time. Unless one is on a big rush, one picks up very few monster hands over the course of any single tournament. I feel it's best to try to extract maximum value from those hands, even if that means busting out early on occasion. Certainly others have success with different strategies.

A note on pot odds: the reason I said those two calls were good (before br clarified how his hand actually played out--note that I still agree with the play) was that by risking their chips, each player was going to take down a pot larger than double their stack if he won (because of blinds/antes/previous bets). If the odds of doing so are better than 1 to 1, from a purely mathematical standpoint, the move has a positive expected value over time. Of course, nothing is guaranteed in any individual hand. And one does have to account for who their opponent is, and the table and tournament situation. With all that in mind, I'm willing to gamble in those situations, given the odds and the inherent advantages that come with having a big stack.