Artichoke Joe's 4-13-05

Yesterday I finally got to use my 2nd freeroll and was hoping to continue my pattern of moving up spots, but it was not to be. I didn't get a lot of great starting hands, won a decent pot with AQ early on but as the blinds started to go up I had to keep throwing away marginal hands. Some hands that did hit I had to chop. Took a gamble once with A3 in the BB with just the SB playing. Flopped a gut shot, checked through, with a Jack on the turn the SB goes all in for 75 more and the blinds right now were at 60-100. So with a 275 pot I put in the 75 to call assuming he had the Jack and hoping that my gutshot with a hopefully live overcard would come through but I lost when a blank hit (now calculating this I was a 5.25-to-1 dog to make the winning hand so it wasn't the greatest gamble but at the time I thought he might also be making a desperation bet with overcards so that Ace high might also have been good). I had to keep folding hands and pretty soon I only had 200 in chips left. I was waiting for any decent hand to raise all-in as every one seemed pretty tight, trying to survive. I finally got 77 and raised all-in to $200 UTG, the SB reraised to clear the field and he turned over AQs as the cards were dealt. I usually have no race luck at the tourneys so I lost to his flush on the turn. Aside from my one stupid gamble not much else I could have done differently so I'll wait till next time for the better gambles.