Booyah!

PokerStars Tournament #49464655, No Limit Hold’em
Super Satellite
Buy-In: $615.00/$35.00
551 players
Total Prize Pool: $338865.00
Target Tournament #43905792 Buy-In: $10000.00
30 tickets to the target tournament

Tournament started – 2007/05/13 – 18:00:00 (ET)

Dear foucault82,

You finished the tournament in 1st place.

This qualifies you for a seat in Tournament #43905792.
As you are already registered in this tournament, your account has been credited
with 10,000.00 W$. W$ can be used to buy into any qualifying special PokerStars event.

Click on the cashier screen to see your W$ balance,
and visit our web site at http://www.pokerstars.com/tournaments.html for more details.

In addition a $1,000.00 award has been credited to your Real Money account.

Congratulations!
Thank you for participating.

Whew, does that feel good. Since Stars started running WSOP sats in February, I’ve spent $12, 816 to win two seats. The first is effectively worth $12,000, since it comes with a sponsorship deal to get an extra $1000 for wearing Poker Stars gear during the tournament. The second is worth $11,000, with $10,000 paid in $W that can be used only for certain events, such satellites to the WSOP and other major events, preliminary WSOP events, and the World Championship of Online Poker.

Poker Stars ended up giving me $10,000 in cash for the first seat, because Harrah’s this year is not allowing internet poker sites to buy players into the tournament themselves. So the best Stars can do is put the money in our accounts and tell us to buy in, which unfortunately many people, including a disproportionate number of those with a negative expectation, probably will not do.

Truthfully, were it not for added $1000 sponsorship, I probably couldn’t justify spending the $10,000 to buy in directly, either, once I had the cash in hand. However, the fact that I am really looking forward to playing, have a four and possibly five figure positive expectation, and am getting paid to play is enough for me to buy in even though I don’t have to.

What’s really concerning to me is that this is going to be very bad for the WSOP’s numbers, and I’m sure Harrah’s knows that. The fact that they chose not to allow poker sites to register their qualifiers directly, in full knowledge that it could cost them hundreds of thousands of dollars in lost fees and other indirect revenue generated by the tournament, suggests that they have a very concrete and imminent concern about the legal consequences of doing business with online poker sites. If the Department of Justice has been leaning on Harrah’s about this, that’s bad news for the legitimacy and legality of internet poker altogether.

But hey, for the time being, I’m going to enjoy my win. Here are some interesting hands:

PokerStars No-Limit Hold’em Tourney, Big Blind is t20 (9 handed) Hand History converter Courtesy of PokerZion.com

BB (t2240)

UTG (t2420)

UTG+1 (t3290)

Hero (t2680)

MP2 (t4360)

MP3 (t2320)

CO (t2140)

Button (t2480)

SB (t3080)

Preflop: Hero is MP1 with Kh, Ks.

1 fold, UTG+1 calls t20, Hero raises to t130, 3 folds, Button calls t130, 2 folds, UTG+1 calls t110.

Flop: (t420) 4d, 3d, 5s (3 players)

UTG+1 checks, Hero bets t300, Button folds, UTG+1 raises to t800, Hero folds.

Final Pot: t1520

If we were more shallow or the structure of this tournament were less good, I’d get it in here, as combo-draws are certainly possible for Villain. But those hands are mostly like 50% against me, and if he has a set or better, I’m crushed. With AA I get it in here because of the straight re-draw, but with KK, I didn’t feel like gambling.

PokerStars No-Limit Hold’em Tourney, Big Blind is t50 (9 handed) Hand History converter Courtesy of PokerZion.com

UTG+1 (t1105)

MP1 (t5160)

MP2 (t865)

Hero (t5425)

CO (t4970)

Button (t2105)

SB (t2430)

BB (t660)

UTG (t2290)

Preflop: Hero is MP3 with Qs, Ac.

4 folds, Hero raises to t125, CO calls t125, 1 fold, SB calls t100, BB calls t75.

Flop: (t500) 5d, 8s, 3s (4 players)

SB checks, BB checks, Hero bets t300, CO folds, SB calls t300, BB folds.

Turn: (t1100) Jc (2 players)

SB checks, Hero bets t650, SB folds.

Final Pot: t1750

The main Villain here is SivTec, a pretty solid but straightforward/predictable player. On the flop, I think there’s a chance my hand is best, and even when I’m called I generally have 6 outs, so I take a stab. When Siv calls out of the SB, his hand range is pretty narrowly defined. It’s very unlikely he has JJ or better, as he didn’t reraise pre-flop. I don’t think he slow-plays a set in a four-way pot with a lot of draws on board. I’m representing quite a lot of strength betting into three callers on this board, and then firing again on the turn, and there’s some chance that the J improved my hand, so I think I can get him to fold virtually his entire range here.

PokerStars No-Limit Hold’em Tourney, Big Blind is t200 (9 handed) Hand History converter Courtesy of PokerZion.com

UTG (t9935)

UTG+1 (t2430)

MP1 (t8100)

MP2 (t5115)

Hero (t11700)

CO (t5475)

Button (t17663)

SB (t3721)

BB (t9200)

Preflop: Hero is MP3 with 5s, As.

4 folds, Hero raises to t600, CO calls t600, 2 folds, BB calls t400.

Flop: (t1900) Kh, 3s, 9d (3 players)

BB checks, Hero bets t1100, CO calls t1100, BB folds.

Turn: (t4100) 5c (2 players)

Hero bets t4000, CO calls t3775 (All-In).

River: (t11875) 8d (2 players, 1 all-in)

Final Pot: t11875

He called down with KJo.

I’d been kind of aggressive lately. Generally when a guy calls off more than 10% of his stack pre-flop, even in position, I put him on a pair. Sometimes he’s slowplaying a big pair, sometimes it’s a small to medium-pair that wants to see a flop or just use his position before committing. There ought to be few if any Kings in his range, so I felt that although he could peel the flop with a lot of pairs, he’d often fold the turn, and if he did have K, I just picked up two more outs. Whoops.

I posted the whole HH at http://www.pokerxfactor.com/servlet/pxf?a=mv&t=myhand2&handid=61174&filename=535_20070514_112938.txt if anyone wants to see it. I’m happy to answer any questions posted here.