Seduced into passivity

Every now and then a player at a tournament table becomes a phantom; they sit out and never return. When a player sits out, the PokerStars software takes over for him, folding his hand to every bet. In the second tournament I entered last night, an opponent sat out on hand 22 and never returned. At the time he sat out, only three players (including the phantom and me) were still alive in the tournament. The chip leader had $3,525 in chips, the phantom had $2,000, and I was the short stack with $475. I was fully expecting the chip leader to make some bullying bets, but he was content to check everything. This non-action on his part seduced me into passivity; instead of playing my own hands on their merits, I fell into his pattern of checking by default. I was hoping that by so doing, the big stack and I would basically split the phantom's chips between us, and I'd get to heads up with a chance, albeit a small one, of coming in first. The problem with this strategy was that it takes a lot of hands to blind off a $2,000 stack, and there was no guarantee that the big stack would remain passive for that long. As it turned out, he didn't. I made it to hand 47, but that was all she wrote. At the start of that final hand, the big stack had $5,025 in chips, the phantom had $600, and I was still the short stack with $375. I was dealt Kd 7d, and the big stack put me all in preflop. I called, and the big stack turned over a pair of fours. Three aces hit on the board, and my three of a kind aces lost to a full house of aces full of fours.

What I should have realized was that with the phantom sitting out, I was basically heads up with the big stack starting at hand 22. I should have played to win at that point, instead of playing for second. I definitely got what I deserved, and I won't make that mistake again.

buy_in entry_fee num_players num_hands place winnings

 50000       800           6       104     3        0
 50000       800           6        47     3        0
 50000       800           6        94     2   105000

delta: $-47,400
tournament balance: $898,090
balance: $6,028,821