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[It's already been a couple of weeks and chances are I've forgotten some of the details, so I'll keep this short.]
On the morning after my 2k bounty score I was feeling better. My fever
had gone down, my throat wasn't sore anymore, I even managed to eat
before hitting the felt. My upbeat mood was history as soon as I saw my
table draw for day two of the main, though. I found my table extremely
tough, especially for such a soft field - David Sonelin, Michael
Tureniec, some Hungarian guy who had a WPT runner-up finish and a CAPT
title from this year alone, pokerccini and some other guy with merits
I've forgotten about. I had 55BB going into the day, but sadly I only
lasted two hands.
In the first hand I played I opened AQo for 1800 at 400/800/100 from EP
and only Michael Tureniec called from the small blind. The flop came A95
with a flush draw, I c-bet something around 2k and he called. The turn
paired the bottom card for A955, I bet again for around 4500 and he tank
folded. After this hand I didn't manage to find any spots at all in a
hyper-aggressive table, and managed to play the next one hour and 15
minutes without playing a single hand. Must have been a record. In my
next hand I busted extremely questionably:
The Hungarian guy opens from middle position to 2200 at 500/1000/100. I
make it 4600 with Q5o from the CO, the button who's an aggro player
clicks it back to something like 7000 and it gets folded around to me.
I'd have to call approximately 2400 into 19k, so getting the ridiculous
odds I call. In hindsight I think this call is fine if you don't spazz
post flop and are capable of getting rid of top pair... which I'm not.
The flop comes Q94 with a flush draw. When I look at this afterwards, I
have no idea what I was doing, but for some reason I decided that
there's a good chance my opponent was 4-bet bluffing so I decided to
induce him. I donkbet 5500 with the intention of shoving over a raise or
check-raising most turns, he makes it 13k or something and I shove. He
calls instantly and - surprise, surprise! - has aces. I think this hand
is a fine example of two different plans that can be fine on their own
but don't work together at all. Pre-flop is fine to mostly try to hit
two pair plus, and possibly do post-flop stuff on some very certain
textures (like check-call 876 so that you can try to hit and also bluff
Ts and 5s). Post-flop *if* I know my opponent's 4-bet range is wide I
think it's a fine plan to get it in given how shallow we are, and what I
did is probably the best way to get it in to maximize profits from his
bluffs and to get to commit first. However in this case I had no
evidence of his 4-bet range being wide, and it's a pretty damn stupid
idea to try to induce against a range that could potentially be KK+.
In a nutshell, this hand was one massive fuck-up, and I don't really have anything to say in my defence.
After busting the EPT I played the 2k buy-in side event just a few hours
after. This tournament was a lot of fun, and again I got a relatively
tough starting table featuring many top players, including TheCzar and
Ch0ppy. I got a pretty good start to the tournament and ended up playing
a ton of hands in the first level, grinding my 12k starting stack up to
something like 18k. Then I lost a massive pot in a hilarious spot:
A Romanian HS reg who's been opening heaps opens from MP to 325 at
75/150 with a 10k stack. I flat KQo from the cutoff. I'd usually 3-bet,
but I had been 3-betting a lot and I kind of had a game flow vibe that
if I 3-bet here I'm going to get 4-bet, and I didn't want to 5-bet punt
this many BBs this early (which I ended up doing anyway) so I thought a
flat would be fine, especially as he generally wouldn't believe me on
Kxx and Qxx boards given my flat.
Anyway, so I flat and the button who (as told to me by Gags30) is a cash
reg from Borgata makes it 1025 with a 20k stack. This is such an
obvious 3-bet spot and I'm sure the Romanian guy realizes this, so I'm
not too surprised when he makes it 2300 or so. Since I think there's a
very good chance that both of these villains are bluffing, I decide to
click it back (repping slowplayed nuts somewhat well in my opinion) to
4550. This way the BTN will have to fold almost everything including a
ton of his value range, and there's no way he can ever rebluff here, and
since I'm pot committed against the Romanian guy he, too, can't ever
bluff and will have to fold almost everything. The downside is that I
really am pot committed against the 10k stack, and I have to call a
shove from the him if it happens. The button folds, the Romanian guy
shrugs and shoves, I say "I hope I have live cards" and show my hand. He
has KK, so once again the hand didn't go as planned. I don't succeed in
a miracle suckout, and soon after get the rest of my stack in in a
standard spot with JJ against QQ and bust.
On the next day I played the $1650 GSOP. I got drawn to the left of my
friend Antti Karkkainen who's a good Finnish tourney player. We were
allowed to chat in Finnish the whole time (since the GSOP staff were
drastically more incompetent than the EPT staff) and upon discussing the
Finnish guys playing the tournament I said something along the lines of
"we are some of the more patient Finnish guys, I don't think we are
going anywhere with a structure this slow on day one. Just watch all the
young guys bust early!". Sure enough I was probably around the second
Finn out of the tournament.
I pretty much won just one hand in the tournament, where I doubled up
with J8cc when I flopped a monster on Tc9c7x. against JTo. Every other
pot I lost, including the big ones that cost me most of my chips. In the
first one I ran a huge bluff with 8s5s on a board 9c7c4sJh3c. I raised
the flop multi-way on the button and bet both the turn and the river
heads-up. I think I would've given up on a brick river, but since I hit
the sickest river card in the deck where absolutely everything gets
there I think my near-pot sized bet was definitely justified. My
opponent made a pretty sick/bad call (he just doesn't beat anything
except an insane bluff) with K9. An hour or so after I finally busted
when I 4-bet shoved KTo from CO against SB's AA. How come they always
have KK+ when I get it in?
For the remainder of the events I ran really bad. I played two more 1ks,
and in both of those I didn't manage to get anything going and never
got above starting stack. I think I played fine in both of them and
didn't spew, it was just the deck screwing me over. The only memorable
bustouts were from the "Rivers" event where each player gets his own
river, and from the mini EPT. They were both pretty sick.
First up was Rivers. I think one of my extremely limited talents when it
comes to poker is learning new games and adapting to new rules /
situations faster than most people - a skill much more valuable in
tournament poker than in cash in general. In this case it was a pretty
easy adaptation, since the value of pocket pairs in all-in situations
went up a lot when each player got their own river (say it's a pre-flop
all-in with 66 against AK, even if he hits his A/K you have all the
board cards as outs as well to make two pair), but I don't think almost
anyone noticed this. I owned both of my tables pretty hard and
quadrupled my starting stack. Then I got it all in pre with AK against
someone's QdJd for what must have been the chiplead pot at the time. The
board ran 6789 with two diamonds. He was in position, so I got my river
card first: a black deuce. I was already packing my stuff, as he had
such a monster draw: any 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, J, Q or a diamond would beat
my hand. It's just impossible to dodge that... right? I'm literally
shocked when his river card comes the other black deuce. Did I just...
dodge that? Really?
My opponent starts yelling something in the local language that I don't
undestand, a heated argument with the dealer ensues, and as a result he
gets dealt another river. A six. He scoops the pot. I ask what the hell
just happened, and the dealer says that he accidentally burnt before
dealing the river card (which I didn't notice happening), and the burn
card was what was meant to be my opponent's river card (the six). I
tried to argue but it was fruitless, as no one knew for sure what had
happened and the dealer really wanted to give the pot to the local guy.
GG.
In the mini EPT (30k start and EPT ME structure except with faster
levels) I built my 30k stack into 60k in a table full of absolute donks.
The most absurd of them was a Swedish guy to my right who played every
hand, got incredibly lucky all the time and also had 60k at the start of
the hand when the average was still 32k or something. I don't remember
the exact details of the hand, but I got it in 150BB deep on a board of
J528 with AA against his 72 which he had limp-called from UTG, and he
rivered a 7 into a 300BB, 4x average pot.
I don't have any fun drunken stories from Prague since I still had my
stomach condition on. I went to the players party on my second to last
night as everyone was going, but only had a couple of drinks. I shared a
mini-bus with Jungleman and shook hands with out newest world champ
Pius, and did some bananas with p3rc4 and Halowax, but all in all it was
a really slow night for me and I retreated to my hotel early. I started
feeling drowzy at like 2 or 3 in the morning when everyone else seemed
to be in a party mood, so I just decided it wasn't my night and took a
cab. I haven't felt that boring in ages. That is the end of my Prague
report, I'm glad to have it done finally.
I've started getting second thoughts about Aussie Millions, there's a
decent chance I may not go. It's basically just that the scheduling of
the series isn't very good when it comes to side events. It only has
three good tourneys; the 10k main, 1k rebuy and 1k re-entry opening
event, and then a couple of other random 1ks here and there. It's such a
long travel and it'd take almost a month for the whole thing with
through-the-roof expenses, I'd have to pay taxes since it's outside the
EU, etc. I don't know, I might still go, but I kind of think that I
might just stay in Finland and play the EPT Deauville and possibly the
Merit Winterfest. I'm not going to defend my title at the Helsinki
Freezeout no matter what happens though, since I'm boycotting it after a
decision made by the casino to block media access. It's a long story
that includes boring Finnish politics, so I'm not going to bore you with
it. All I have to say is that I'm strongly advising everyone against
playing live poker in Finland as long as the situation is what it is.
Our only casino, owned by our greedy government and ran by corrupted
officials, is trying its best to make life for poker players as hard as
possibly in our country, and I'm not going to support any of that with a
cent of rake. Same goes for our national online poker which is why you
didn't see me participate at the Finnish Online Championships either.
In other news I had a gastroenterology
done just before christmas because of my stomach problems. I'm never
ever ever going to have that done again without anaesthesia. That was
one of the nut worst experiences of my life. First they gagged me with a
plastic thing with a hole in the middle, that reminded me slightly of
the teeth guard that boxers use. Then I had to swallow a hose the size
of a snake. They'd scan my entire stomach with it, and I'd feel the
thing inside of me all the time. I'd also get a constant gagging reflex,
since I had a snake in my throat. On the first attempt I panicked
before they even got halfway and tore the hose out of my throat myself
after almost knocking the doctor out (result: I also tore wounds to my
throat and ended up spitting blood days after). On the second attempt I
started gagging and vomiting when they were almost at the bottom and
nearly choked in my own vomit. On the third and last attempt I did a
meditation-like thing and tried to think about other things than the
hose inside of me, and somehow managed to get through it, still gagging
all the time and vomiting afterwards. And they didn't even find
anything. What they basically told me that there's nothing wrong with my
stomach and it may or may not heal on its own, but there's nothing they
can do. I was even given permission to do alcohol again, but I'm still
going to stay off it except for special occasions I think.
Happy Christmas.
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