I did a pretty awful job of updating this blog over the last few weeks -- apologies to my readers.

To follow-up on my last blog entry, I finished 18th in the 6-max NLHE event. Unfortunately, the blind structure got a bit ridiculous and we went from 2k/4k/500 blinds up to 5k/10k/1k in the matter of a few levels. This means that chip stacks were nearly cut in half after 2 hours of play which brought a huge element of luck into the outcome. It was pretty disappointing since we had played a great structure up to that point and it was frustrating that variance and Lady Luck played a bigger role as the money became more significant.

I wanted to discuss two specific hands in the late-stages of the tournament that I played that highlights the importance of Villain-Specific Lines:

The first hand was played about ten players short of the bubble. I had played at this table for a good 3-4 hours and the Button on my Big Blind was a young kid who was competent, aggressive, and solid. I had won a huge pot off of him in a three way AK v QQ v AQ hand when I spiked a King and he had chipped back up nicely to the point that he now had me covered. I had bled some chips and whiddled down to around 20 BBs.

We had been joking around about how my big blind was just there for the taking. He called me a nit and I called it the "Alex Soup Kitchen" whenever I posted the BB. TBH I was being dealt absolute garbage in the BB and it just so happened that this kid was an aggressive button.

So fast forward to this hand and I am dealt JJ. He BTN opens and my standard move here is to just reraise. Lots of merits to 3b, I don't need to go over the 3b for value. In this situation, I felt that flatting my BB was best. There were a few elements here that swayed my decision:

a.) He had stolen my BB so my defend range is wider. Also 3b wasn't that common so the fact I flatted shouldn't have raised alarm bells.
b.) His range is wide from button

So I flatted with JJ with the intention of DL/3b-shoving pretty much any flop. The merits behind the donk-lead is that he was clearly an online guy and it would be the first time I took this line. Most online players react with a raise to a DL and it would be a great way to pick up chips if I was careful and smart with my sizing. Fortunately the flop cooperated as well and it came down 9-hi (though irrelevant in this hand IMO). I lead min-bet and he nearly instant-raises me to a pot-sized bet. I tank-shove and he instantly folds face-up with a small suited gapper. A nice non-SD pot to chip-up during a crucial time in the tourney.

The second hand I played was in Day 2. The Chipleader was an older guy who had 750k chips when everyone else in field had fewer than 250k. Blinds were ridic and he was very obviously catching cards.

I got dealt AA and it was his Big Blind. Rather than shove my 7 BB stack, I opted to min-raise. Ordinarily this just looks SUPER strong in a situation where I should clearly be committing my chips or folding, however this guy had so many chips and clearly bought into the whole 'BB discount' mentality. The guy wasn't a competent player and so I could take a fishier line against him. I would not have done this against pretty much any other player in the field. I expected him to defend with ATC and he didn't disappoint. I was able to bet small on flop and then shove turn and pick up a nice pot. He folded J3o on the turn and commented that he was committed due to my min-raise pre.

...for those wondering, these are the type of guys that do (and did) win tournaments.