Stupid or unlucky?

[teknique]

Heres a fun sequence of two hands where I went from chip leader to bubble boy. This is the very last SNG I played in a session where I bubbled a lot (see other post) so this one is sticking in my mind.

hand 1:

PokerStars No-Limit Hold'em, $6.00+$0.50 Tournament, 100/200 Blinds 25 Ante (4 handed) - Poker-Stars Converter Tool from FlopTurnRiver.com

Hero (Button) (t4455)
SB (t2310)
BB (t3295)
UTG (t3440)

Hero's M: 11.14

Preflop: Hero is Button with K, 8
1 fold, Hero raises to t4430 (All-In), SB calls t2185 (All-In), 1 fold

Flop: (t4870) 3, A, 10 (2 players, 2 all-in)

Turn: (t4870) K (2 players, 2 all-in)

River: (t4870) Q (2 players, 2 all-in)

Total pot: t4870

Villian had me dominated. The very next hand, same villian:

PokerStars No-Limit Hold'em, $6.00+$0.50 Tournament, 100/200 Blinds 25 Ante (4 handed) - Poker-Stars Converter Tool from FlopTurnRiver.com

Hero (UTG) (t2145)
Button (t4870)
SB (t3070)
BB (t3415)

Hero's M: 5.36

Preflop: Hero is UTG with K, 6
Hero raises to t2120 (All-In), Button calls t2120, 2 folds

Flop: (t4640) 7, 8, 8 (2 players, 1 all-in)

Turn: (t4640) 2 (2 players, 1 all-in)

River: (t4640) 10 (2 players, 1 all-in)

Total pot: t4640

Villian once again called with a premium hand and took that pot with ace high.

I think the next level was about a minute or two away when these hands happened. SNG wizard shows hand 1 as a push and hand 2 as a fold, but I pushed the second one partially because of the incoming blind increase, but partially due to a rush of blood to the head on an above average hand..

So was this bubble stupid play, or simply unlucky to run into 2 premium hands in a row?

[Ecchu]

Most likely unlucky although at 100/200/25 and CL I am not too keen on raising AI from button with K8. It really depends on the table makeup though...

I'd suggest getting SNGWiz. I just downloaded the 30-day trial and it has been very helpful in showing me some of my leaks. Take it with a grain of salt though because even it's math is not perfect.

[ciaran]

First hand is a shove in equilibrium, but standard opponents call too loose for their own good and your upside from stealing the blinds is limited. Raise-fold (or even open fold) is better. 2nd hand is a simple fold UTG, marginal from the button, and a snap shove BvB (note, they've already seen you shove "light" once).

[jmbreslin]

Just ran the first one through SNGEGT and the only way this push is +ev is if the blinds are both tight enough to only call top 8% of hands or better. Any looser than that and the push becomes -ev.

I think the important thing in that hand is that you simply don't need to take that risk there. You can make a standard steal raise and fold to a push, which doesn't put a huge chunk of your stack on the line.

[teknique]

I think my biggest blunder on the K8 hand was simply not waiting until 200/400 to try and be more aggressive... I mentioned in another thread that I am a bit wimpy so I have been trying hard to tune up the aggression, especially on the bubble and also with a big stack, but here I should have just sat on my hands until 200/400 and then tried to use my stack to push people around.

I usually don't play any at the weekends, so expect more poorly played hands appearing on here on Monday