Archive for February, 2009

About three hours into this tournament, it was looking to be short and sweet. I shoved 33 from the SB over an aggressive guy in the CO who’d been raising most of the time it was folded to him. The BB wakes up with TT and shoves over the top, and the original raiser manages to have AA. Buuuut, I spike my 3 to more than triple up and suddenly have a nice stack to ride.

Nearly three hours after that, we’re on the bubble, I open the pot with a min-raise for like the 10th time in the last two orbits, the BB 3-bets, I shove all in with my AK, and he calls it off with 88. He wins the flip, and I spend 6 hours playing to bubble and walk away with nothing. Standard FTOPS stupidness. Thank goodness it’s over.

Embarassingly for FTP, although this tournament with a $2.5 million guaranteed prizepool was the centerpiece of one of their major tournament series, Poker Stars actually managed to edge them out for biggest tournament of the day with its own special $2.5 million guarantee in the $200 Sunday tournament. The tournament, part of Stars’ 25 billionth hand promotion, drew over 13,000 runners.

I really wish FTP had found a way to avoid scheduling this on Valentine’s Day. Emily told me she was OK with me playing it, which I think she would have been, but that’s really all the more reason to spend the day with her. And obviously the latter is far more fun and less stressful/frustrating than buying a super-expensive lottery ticket. Long story short, I didn’t play.

I really wish FTP had found a way to avoid scheduling this on Valentine’s Day. Emily told me she was OK with me playing it, which I think she would have been, but that’s really all the more reason to spend the day with her. And obviously the latter is far more fun and less stressful/frustrating than buying a super-expensive lottery ticket. Long story short, I didn’t play.

As I’ve said many times before, my preference in Stud tournaments is not to build big pots on 3rd street. That’s generally a high-variance, low-edge strategy, and it makes otherwise large mistakes on future streets much less severe. Unfortunately, people were being stupidly aggressive on 3rd, seemingly raising at every opportunity with any three low cards, so there wasn’t much that could be done to avoid it. As usually happens in Razz, I wasn’t catching well on later streets but was generally priced in for slim call downs because of how many bets had already gone into the pot:

Tournament – Razz (40/80), Ante 7, Bring-In 10

Foucault (Seat 1): 3,903
cardsharkk (Seat 2): 3,588
dinho_style (Seat 3): 3,912
AK_47_JAZZ (Seat 4): 4,005
Kristy Gazes (Seat 5): 4,479
OnlyPlayRagz (Seat 6): 5,628
Jawarhalo (Seat 7): 3,613
NastyBeet (Seat 8): 2,872

3rd Street – (1.40 SB)

Foucault: 3 4 A___completes___raises

cardsharkk: xx xx T___folds

dinho_style: xx xx J___folds

AK_47_JAZZ: xx xx A___raises___calls

Kristy Gazes: xx xx 9___folds

OnlyPlayRagz: xx xx 4___calls___calls

Jawarhalo: xx xx 3___folds

NastyBeet: xx xx J___brings-in___folds

4th Street – (10.65 SB)

Foucault: 3 4 A J___calls___calls___calls

AK_47_JAZZ: xx xx A 8___raises___raises

OnlyPlayRagz: xx xx 4 2___bets___raises___calls

5th Street – (11.33 BB)

Foucault: 3 4 A J T___calls  Read the complete post...

Not surprisingly, the quality of play in this was something like atrocious. Judging from the chat and general play, I was at a table full of clowns, which was cool. My favorite hand saw a guy raise pre-flop, and get two callers, and then bet 2x pot on A44 flop. The SB tanked forever and announced that he was folding AT. The better agreed that it was a tough but good fold.

Anyhow, with that in mind, I think I am fist-pump stacking off here even for like 170BBs. I mean, do we really see this guy playing TT any differently?

Full Tilt No-Limit Hold’em Tournament, 15/30 Blinds (6 handed) – Full-Tilt Converter Tool from FlopTurnRiver.com

Button (t5050)
SB (t5585)
Hero (BB) (t5115)
UTG (t5430)
MP (t4775)
CO (t4045)

Hero’s M: 113.67

Preflop: Hero is BB with K, K
1 fold, MP raises to t90, 3 folds, Hero raises to t300, MP calls t210

Flop: (t615) 4, 7, 7 (2 players)
Hero bets t615, MP calls t615

Turn: (t1845) 9 (2 players)
Hero bets t1200, MP raises to t3860 (All-In), Hero calls t2660

River: (t9565) 3 (2 players, 1 all-in)

Total pot: t9565

Results:
Hero had K, K (two pair, Kings and sevens).
MP had A, A (two pair, Aces and sevens).
Outcome: MP won t9565

I almost didn’t play this because my experience with limit tournaments has always been that even if I am not doing well they take forever. At least in NLHE if it isn’t going well you don’t waste a lot of time on it. Well, I managed to eliminate myself in less than three hours, so I guess that’s something.

There was a key Stud/8 hand I wanted to talk about, but somehow the HH file seems to have disappeared from my computer. Basically, I was the bring-in with 5(48) a player in middle position open raised with a K in the door, a loose player called with a Q, and I 2-bet. In a cash game this would be a very standard raise since I appear to have the only low hand in a 3-way pot. Arguably in a tournament one ought to be more conservative about pushing small edges early in a hand when stacks are shallow, but I was looking to go balls to the wall. They both called.

On fourth, they both caught non-threatening cards, and I caught a 7. Now I really had a monster, with a gutshot and four to a low against two players going high. The K bet, the Q called, I raised, and they both called.  Read the complete post...

Given the deep stacks, short-handed format, and substantial buy-in, this was probably the FTOPS event I was looking forward to the most. Sadly, the other players at my table were giant nits during the rebuy period. I got AK on the first hand and open shoved, then shoved a more times just trying to get up a kinda crazy image, but no one would play along. I even tried trash talking in the chat box, but they kept folding anyway.

Finally I got 22 in the SB and open raised 3x. The player in the BB re-raised, and I shoved because for like 40 BB’s in a rebuy I really ought to be able to get 22 in pre-flop profitably in a blind battle, but of course nitbag showed up with TT. I’m pretty sure mine was the only rebuy our table had- most players didn’t even double buy initially, and at least one didn’t take the add-on.

After the rebuy period was over, I tightened up for half an hour or so until the blinds got appreciable and then started min-raising a lot of hands. I’m increasingly convinced that, especially in 6-max tournaments, that’s the way to go. People are already not adjusting well to the short-handed format, and smaller raises is the best way to exploit their excessive tightness. When people did re-raise me, it was usually some amont like a full 3x my raise which was way larger than it needed to be. Basically no one was calling as light as he should out of the BB, and even when they did call, they sucked enough at post-flop play that it was fine anyway.  Read the complete post...

I almost didn’t play this because my experience with limit tournaments has always been that even if I am not doing well they take forever. At least in NLHE if it isn’t going well you don’t waste a lot of time on it. Well, I managed to eliminate myself in less than three hours, so I guess that’s something.

There was a key Stud/8 hand I wanted to talk about, but somehow the HH file seems to have disappeared from my computer. Basically, I was the bring-in with 5(48) a player in middle position open raised with a K in the door, a loose player called with a Q, and I 2-bet. In a cash game this would be a very standard raise since I appear to have the only low hand in a 3-way pot. Arguably in a tournament one ought to be more conservative about pushing small edges early in a hand when stacks are shallow, but I was looking to go balls to the wall. They both called.

On fourth, they both caught non-threatening cards, and I caught a 7. Now I really had a monster, with a gutshot and four to a low against two players going high. The K bet, the Q called, I raised, and they both called.  Read the complete post...