I ran like ass in everything I played yesterday except the Stars $300, but I ran very well in that and finished 3rd for just under $9000, so it was still a quite good day. I’ve uploaded the entire hand history from the tournament using Pokerxfactor’s hand history replayer. This is an amazing tool for reviewing and analyzing tournament play, and frankly it’s the only reason I’m still a PXF member. Their videos are good, but not great, and I feel like you can get most of what you’re going to get from Sheets or Bax after watching a few videos from each of them.
Anyway, here’s the link to the replay of my 3rd place finish. You don’t have to be a member to look at it. I’m including commentary on some key hands here:
Great starting table. No particularly good players whom I recognize, and a few known fish to my immediate right.
16- This is a little passive. Bart is a weak player, and I should have isolated him with position and likely the best hand.
61- I wasn’t really sure what to do here. I’m pretty sure dpeters viewed me as aggressive, and his check-raise sort of felt like a probe to me. However, if it is any kind of made hand, I’m drawing very slim, which is why I decided to let it go.
75- I wonder if I missed a value bet on the river? I thought a while before checking. The problem is not a lot of draws missed, which means his calling range will probably be kind of narrow. I guesshe real question is how often he checks better hands like AQ on the river.
222- I definitely should have open shoved this pre-flop.
273- I’ll sometimes flat call here with weaker hands that I want to run against the short stack so that I can get away if one of the blinds decides to get involved. I felt like since the shorty was going to get his money in anyway I’d try to invite in someone behind me.
287- Whoops. This was a slightly larger pre-flop jam than would be ideal, but as the chipleader, that guy ought to be opening a fairly wide range.
303- Villain’s putting in a good chunk of his stack pre-flop, and even on this safe flop I was kind of worried. I felt like I’d have to call a check-raise on such a dry board, but didn’t want to be in that spot, so I figured I could get more bluffs into his range and avoid playing for stacks with a flop check.
314- We’re on the final table bubble. Stacks are awkward for anyone except the button to jam on me, and since he’s got two left to act behind him, he’ll need a tighter range than the others to shove. Deni claimed he folded Q’s there.
329- I don’t know about this fold. Halfrek is a smart, aggressive player, and I’ve been raising a lot from late position. I think I should have either open limped the button or called this shove.
330- PokerSavage is also a pretty good player, and I’m kind of surprised he was willing to shove so much preflop. Tourney donk syndrome, I suppose.
352- This was a close decision. Ultimately this is a spot where I don’t want to take a close gamble with a healthy stack on the bubble of the final table.
356- I considered shoving preflop to isolate julucas with great pot odds, but moffen was short enough that he shouldn’t fold anything. Frankly I was a little worried he was trapping, since he should really be in push/fold preflop mode. I can’t go anywhere once I flop top pair, though.
357- PokerSavage’s shoves finally get him in trouble, though I would have played this one the same in his shoes.
364- Another close one, given my image and a history of Deni reraising me. In this case, though, I’m UTG and he’s UTG+1, which should tighten his range. Also, I’m chipleader by a good margin with like ten left right now, and I’m not looking to gamble for most of my stack. With 9’s I get it in here.
367- We’re at the final table. Stacks are lined up pretty nicely for me, with the 2nd place guy two to my right. Pabs has a decent stack, position on me, and is kind of loose, which could be a problem. With so many short stacks around, my plan is to slow down until there aren’t so many desperate players looking to shove. Meanwhile I’ll try to snap off their pushes when it’s profitable to do so.
371- Again, I’m hoping one of the shorty’s decides to get involved. I’m in position, and a call is going to suggest a much wider range for me than a reraise would. The board is kind of a draw-heavy, but Halfrek could have a very wide range, so I don’t have to be too concerned about any particular draw. More importantly, it would be very difficult for him to continue past the flop if I raised. I’m hoping he picks up a draw, decides to bluff a scare card on the turn, or puts me on a draw if a blank comes. Oh well.
376- Tempting to reraise here, since I should be way ahead of his range, but I don’t want to set him up to 4-bet me, nor do I want to shove 11x his raise preflop. So I’ll take a flop and see what happens. Nothing for me to represent here. With A high I might peel, but I can afford just to give this one up. I’m only passing chips to my right, so they’ll come back eventually.
392- I thought this was a pretty standard call against a 5x open shove from the shortest stack at the table. However, it seemed to really kill my table image, so I guess no one else thought so.
409- I was hoping I could still pressure Halfrek, since chipleader or not he shouldn’t be looking to play out of position against me. He wasn’t having it, though.
413- I’m almost always giving up postflop against someone who calls off most of his stack preflop, but since players will generally jam Aces preflop in this spot, I thought it was worth stabbing at this flop.
418- I figured pabs for Ace high, and I seriously considered firing at the river. I probably should have, because it’s not that likely that he’s checking any pair here.
421- I’d been dying to resteal from halfrek, and the latest blind jump finally gave us the right stack sizes. This is any two cards.
423- I’m not getting enough respect to open A7 with these stacks.
430- Playing the button aggressively is very important when three handed. This board is so likely to hit pabs, though, and he’s not folding any piece to me, so I’d rather just take a free card for my draw. Oh well. Keeping playing pots out of position with me, buddy, you can’t river a chop every time.
432- This was close given how much pabs has been plying back at me. Once I call the turn, though, I can’t see how he would expect me to fold for half pot on the river.
435- A lot of people sweating me didn’t like this hand, and for good reason. I think I should have called flop and evaluated the turn, maybe check-raised all in. I didn’t expect him to fold any pair, but I didn’t think he needed a pair to raise the flop, especially since I had led at a similarly dry board last orbit and eventually given up.