A pretty small tournament but still, VICTORY.



I had a pretty solid start, signing up during late registration and not needing any rebuys (except for the one I bought right when I sat down) during the rebuy period. I was helped immensely by this crazy hand in the mid stages of the tournament. After that I was the chip leader by a pretty good margin, and was able to steal lots of pots and reach the final table with my chip lead intact.

This final table had a lot more aggressive play than the 30k one from last week, plus the blinds moved faster (12 minute levels instead of 15) so there were a lot of big clashes and light 3-bets. I mostly stayed out of the way of the big pots, except for one that I took down with a big bluff on the river. I had KQ and a busted combo draw on the river, and the board was A9T78. My opponent insta-checked when the 8 hit and I bluffed about 2/3 of the pot, which was about 1/3 of my big stack. He grumbled about me hitting my runner-runner straight and folded, meaning he either had an ace or didn't want me to know that his flop and turn bets were bluffs.

All the way to heads-up play, I pretty much just slowly built a stack and avoided major confrontations. I only eliminated one player at the final table before we got to heads-up - I raised QQ under the gun, a slightly retarded loose player called from the small blind, the flop came T65 rainbow, he check-raised me all-in and I insta-called, he showed JT and I was happy.

J on the turn and I was sad.

Q on the river and I was happy again.

I ended up heads-up with the most conservative player at the table, who had won a huge flip to eliminate the 3rd place guy and move into heads-up play with a 3:2 chip lead on me. I went into steal mode and got back to about even, but then, disaster! I ran into a couple of brick walls, including a straight vs full house that would have eliminated me if he had been any good at extracting value. As it was, he played his flopped full house way too slow, and made a tiny river bet that was either a bad value bet or a bad attempt to induce a bluff-raise from me. Either way, the way he played the hand (compared to how he had played previous hands) set off alarm bells that he might have a monster, and the board was a scary one for my straight anyway, so I was able to just call his small bet and lose the minimum.

Eventually he had me down to around 100k to his 480k, at which point I went into reshove mode by picking off his button raises, which by now he was making almost 100% of the time. I got back to almost even, then crippled him when he check-raised me all-in with J3 on an QJ2 flop and I snap-called with my Q8. The next hand I won a 40-60 and took it down.

BAM!

A pretty small tournament but still, VICTORY.



I had a pretty solid start, signing up during late registration and not needing any rebuys (except for the one I bought right when I sat down) during the rebuy period. I was helped immensely by this crazy hand in the mid stages of the tournament. After that I was the chip leader by a pretty good margin, and was able to steal lots of pots and reach the final table with my chip lead intact.

This final table had a lot more aggressive play than the 30k one from last week, plus the blinds moved faster (12 minute levels instead of 15) so there were a lot of big clashes and light 3-bets. I mostly stayed out of the way of the big pots, except for one that I took down with a big bluff on the river. I had KQ and a busted combo draw on the river, and the board was A9T78. My opponent insta-checked when the 8 hit and I bluffed about 2/3 of the pot, which was about 1/3 of my big stack. He grumbled about me hitting my runner-runner straight and folded, meaning he either had an ace or didn't want me to know that his flop and turn bets were bluffs.

I ended up heads-up with the most conservative player at the table, who had won a huge flip to eliminate the 3rd place guy and move into heads-up play with a 3:2 chip lead on me. I went into steal mode and got back to about even, but then, disaster! I ran into a couple of brick walls, including a straight vs full house that would have eliminated me if he had been any good at extracting value. As it was, he played his flopped full house way too slow, and made a tiny river bet that was either a bad value bet or a bad attempt to induce a bluff-raise from me. Either way, the way he played the hand (compared to how he had played previous hands) set off alarm bells that he might have a monster, and the board was a scary one for my straight anyway, so I was able to just call his small bet and lose the minimum.

Eventually he had me down to around 100k to his 480k, at which point I went into reshove mode by picking off his button raises, which by now he was making almost 100% of the time. I got back to almost even, then crippled him when he check-raised me all-in with J3 on an QJ2 flop and I snap-called with my Q8. The next hand I won a 40-60 and took it down.

BAM!

I didn't play poker at all on Saturday other than a quick six-seat turbo SNG that I won for $420, so on Sunday I headed out to Ocean's to play some 5-5. I ended up with a $280 loss, which I'm actually happy with because it could have been much bigger.

I played several big pots, the first of which came early on when I made it $20 with 66, a conservative old guy on my left reraised to $60 and I knew he had to have JJ, QQ, KK or AA. He would never reraise with AK or anything weaker. The flop was a nice 965 rainbow. I check-raised him from $50 to $150 on the flop, and he thought for about ten seconds before calling. Turn was a Q - not a great card, but there's no way I'm going to worry about getting set over setted in this situation. I bet $250 and he immediately called. The river was an ace.

I wasn't too happy with the turn or the river, since AA and QQ were a huge part of his range. However, by this point the pot was a little over $900 and I only had about $400 left. There's NO WAY I can check here. The reason is that if he does have AA or QQ, he's obviously going all-in when I check to him, and I'll have to call. However, if he has KK, JJ or something weaker, he's just going to check behind. So if I check to him, I'll be letting him off the hook when I have him beat, while allowing him to build the pot only when he has me beat. If I go all-in, I'm still going broke if I'm up against a higher set, but I still have a chance of getting paid off by one of the other hands. So my only option here is to go all-in for my last $400 and if he happens to have AA or QQ, that's just too bad.

He thought for about 30 seconds, said "I just don't think you got it", made the call with JJ and I took down the $1700 pot. He happened to be sitting directly to my left, so for the next hour or so he trapped himself in a conversational cycle where he'd try to justify and explain his river call to me (despite the fact that I hadn't said a word about it) then pause for a few seconds and go "MAN that was a fucking stupid call", then lapse into silence for a while. He turned out to be a pretty nice guy, he just couldn't stop kicking himself for calling me down in that hand.

Sadly, that was the only big pot I won. I kept my losses to a minimum and made a couple of big folds in big pots, and was lucky enough to have my opponent show his hand both times. Both of them were made significantly easier by the fact that my opponents were fairly tight and conservative and not really capable of making moves. In one hand I flopped a combo draw (straight and flush draw), check-raised my opponent, got called, and hit the jack-high flush on the turn. I made a half-pot bet, got raised pretty big, threw my flush away and got shown the nut flush.

The other one was a weirder hand that I don't fully remember (other than that it was fucking weird!) and it eventually led to me folding KJ to a big river raise on a Jxx7J board. This one was harder because I never had that clear an idea what my opponent had, and I certainly didn't think he'd call my flop raise with 77, but that's what he showed me after I folded. The only hands I could think of that he could have were AJ or a flopped set, so my read was very slightly wrong but it saved me $400 or so.

So it was a little frustrating making second-best hands in big pots, but it showed me how much easier it is to play against conservative opponents who can't really bluff or make thin value bets. And I didn't really do anything fancy, but I did maximize value on my set and avoid a couple of landmines. Next time I'll clean those bitches out!

I played three tournaments and did make one final table with the chip lead, but busted out in 8th for $520 after a guy made a flop call with 3rd pair that was either stupid or brilliant, then faded my 15 outs twice to eliminate me. I also barely cashed for around $250 in the same tournament I won a couple days ago, and got two-outered out of the 30r shortly after the rebuy levels. Not quite what I was looking to do, but it left me with around a $400 profit for the day, so not a horrible result either.

Also a fun beat from last night at Ocean's 11 that I forgot to put in here because I wasn't involved in it. There was a ton of action on an A75 rainbow flop between a good player and a terrible super-aggressive regular. The bad regular eventually 5-bet all-in, and the good player thought for so long that the bad player called the clock on him. Eventually he called (creating a pot slightly over $1,800) and showed A7. The turn came a 4, and the bad player shouted "YES!" and flipped over 36.

Ouch!

Glad that didn't happen to me!

I busted a move out to Ocean's tonight to play some 5-5 and looked like I was going to have a breakeven or barely winning session, but two catastrophic hands knocked me from a slight winner to a $1,200 loser.

It was WACK!

To sum up the first wack hand, the guy to my right (a loose calling station) limped, I raised on the button with 66, he called and the flop came J62. He bet the flop and then called my decent-sized raise. The turn was the 9 and he looked pretty excited about it, then checked and called my bet. The river was the K, and by this point I was pretty sure he had two diamonds. He thought for a moment and fired out a big bet.

At this point I had to decide whether to shove for value or just call. I was still convinced he had two diamonds, but I also didn't think he was simply bluffing with a missed draw. Most likely one of his diamonds was a jack, and he was betting for value with something like J9 or KJ. If he had one of those two hands, I was positive he'd call a river shove, and he'd probably call with some other diamonds-and-a-pair hands like AJ or KQ. The other, much wacker possibility was that he had QT and had gotten super lucky, and the reason he'd looked excited on the turn was all the extra outs the nine gave him.

I decided to shove since there were plenty of hands I thought he'd call with that I could beat. He called instantly and showed QT.

Shit number one!

Wack hand number two occurred a little while later when I raised from late position with 55, the button called with T5 offsuit (??), the flop came T65 rainbow, we got all the money in, he spiked his ten on the turn and I watched the $1,200 pot slide in the other direction.

Shit number two!

Oh well. I can't really complain since we're five days into December and already I'm up nearly $10,000 for the month. I won't be able to play Saturday, but tomorrow I'll tear shit up tournament style!

I just started this thing and I didn't play any hands yesterday to put in here, so here's a big hand from Ocean's 11 the other day.

I had been rocking some 10-10 NL and had run my $1,500 buyin up to around $2,500. The game had been mostly weak-tight with only a couple of good players, but the bad players were starting to leave and I was considering leaving as well. Right around the time I had decided to only play a couple more orbits, a new guy sat down two seats to my right. I didn't know anything about how this guy played, but he was clearly an online player, since he was a young white guy wearing sunglasses, noise-cancelling headphones and a DeucesCracked jacket. I also get "internet player" comments all the time (even though I don't wear any of those three items) and I think that ended up being crucial to how the hand played out.

I picked up AA on the button and one of the remaining bad players open-limped from late position. I made it $60 and the online player, who was sitting in the big blind with about $2,000, reraised to $240. The limper folded and I had to decide whether I wanted to reraise him back or just call and try to trap him on the flop.

The reason the "online player" thing is important is that online, the games tend to be much more aggressive. People raise all the time with marginal and bad hands, especially from the button. This means people are much more willing to reraise, since they know the original raiser most likely doesn't have a strong enough hand to call. However, once the original raiser realizes that people are reraising him with weak hands, he can reraise them AGAIN as a bluff, since they probably don't have a strong hand either. The result of all this is that it's quite common online (especially at 2/4 and up) for people to raise and reraise each other preflop, both representing a strong hand, when actually they both have nothing.

Live, that almost never happens. In live games, at least the ones here in San Diego, when two or three raises go in before the flop, people usually have hands.

Anyway, because of all this, I knew that he didn't necessarily respect my raise from the button, and thought it was quite likely to be a bluff. And because of that, HIS raise to $240 was likely to be a bluff as well. I decided if I made a small reraise to $600, he was likely to view that as an attempt to pick off his bluff. My hope was that he'd call my $600 reraise, which would create a $1,200 pot and leave him with $1,400 behind. He'd have to act first on the flop and hopefully would try to take the pot from me.

Instead, he thought for all of five seconds and went all-in for $2,000. I called instantly and showed my aces, and he gave a resigned "oops" and showed Q7o. HOO HA! The turn actually gave him four outs (K63 flop, then a five came on the turn) but the river was a blank and I took down the $4,000 pot. The guy actually turned out to be a good player, he just was clearly more used to online play than live play and it caused him to make a big mistake on that hand. It worked out for me, since it took me from a $1,000 winner for the day to a $3,000 winner. Hooray!

BAM!




It would have been two concurrent final tables but sadly I busted out of the 15k rebuy in a non-bamworthy 17th place. Right after we broke to two tables, I was sitting on 70k at 1500/3000/300a. I picked up AA on the button, and a super short stack shoved for 4500 from early position. Because the big blind was a super-aggressive pick-up-the-dead-money type player, I made a modest isolation raise in the hopes that he would shove over me with any reasonable hand. To my surprise he just called. He checked the T93 rainbow flop, I bet 10k, he instantly shoved, I called and was shown TT. Oops!

I also made a gangsta half-good read at the final table of the 30k. 4-handed, I tried a blind steal with K3 and got called by the chip leader in the big blind. The flop came A72, I led out and got raised pretty big.

The main thing I knew about the big blind was that he was semi-tight and trappy. I'd seen him flop four strong hands at this final table (two top pairs, an overpair and a small set) and EVERY TIME he took a passive check-call line up to the river. He had shown aggression a few times, but unfortunately either I hadn't gotten to see his cards on those hands or I just couldn't remember.

So I was fairly certain of two things: 1) He didn't have an ace, and 2) he wouldn't call a shove without an ace or better. Read #1 was accurate but read #2 was not, since he snap-called my shove for 2/3 of his stack with K7. Oops again! He happened to have the one non-ace hand that killed my three pair outs, meaning a king wouldn't win the pot for me. Even though I overestimated his tightness, I'm still glad that I correctly figured he didn't have an ace and that a shove was therefore in order. I wasn't thrilled to be all-in with nine outs instead of the twelve I thought I'd have, but I was saved by a diamond on the river.

And then I took that motherfucker down!

BAM!!

It would have been two concurrent final tables but sadly I busted out of the 15k rebuy in a non-bamworthy 17th place. Right after we broke to two tables, I was sitting on 70k at 1500/3000/300a. I picked up AA on the button, and a super short stack shoved for 4500 from early position. Because the big blind was a super-aggressive pick-up-the-dead-money type player, I made a modest isolation raise in the hopes that he would shove over me with any reasonable hand. To my surprise he just called. He checked the T93 rainbow flop, I bet 10k, he instantly shoved, I called and was shown TT. Oops!

I also made a gangsta half-good read at the final table of the 30k. 4-handed, I tried a blind steal with K3 and got called by the chip leader in the big blind. The flop came A72, I led out and got raised pretty big.

The main thing I knew about the big blind was that he was semi-tight and trappy. I'd seen him flop four strong hands at this final table (two top pairs, an overpair and a small set) and EVERY TIME he took a passive check-call line up to the river. He had shown aggression a few times, but unfortunately either I hadn't gotten to see his cards on those hands or I just couldn't remember.

So I was certain of two things: 1) He didn't have an ace, and 2) he wouldn't call a shove without an ace or better. Read #1 was accurate but read #2 clearly was not, since he snap-called my shove for about 2/3 of his stack with K7. Oops again! He happened to have the one non-ace hand that killed my three pair outs. Even though I overestimated his tightness, I'm still semi-glad that I correctly figured he didn't have an ace and that a shove was therefore in order. I wasn't that thrilled to be all-in with nine outs instead of the twelve I thought I'd have, but I was saved by a diamond on the river.

And then I took that motherfucker down!

BAM!!

It would have been two concurrent final tables but sadly I busted out of the 15k rebuy in a non-bamworthy 17th place. Right after we broke to two tables, I was sitting on 70k at 1500/3000/300a. I picked up AA on the button, and a super short stack shoved for 4500 from early position. Because the big blind was a super-aggressive pick up the dead money player, I only made a modest isolation raise in the hopes that he would shove over me with any reasonable hand. To my surprise he just called. He checked the T93 rainbow flop, I bet 10k, he instantly shoved, I called and was shown TT. Oops!

At least I took down the motherfucking 30k!!

I bet it's fucking MARVELOUS!