Three Rivers Poker Challenge

Made Day 2 of a local $900 + $100 (with another $27 of that $900 withheld for staff – I’m not winning nitcast awards for this one) event. Couple of funny stories from Day 1:

1. I was better than I usually am about looking left but still not nearly good enough. It was unbelievable how many people were telegraphing their actions. One guy even counted out chips and stacked them on top of his cards when he was going to raise. He was also the only guy at my starting table wearing sunglasses. Wouldn’t want to give off any tells!

There were at least five instances where I made a play based on what I saw behind me – either folded a marginal open or raised a hand I would have folded. And that’s despite the fact that I was looking left less than half the time. Granted I usually play with slightly tougher competition, but I’m starting to think doing this consistently should be my single biggest priority in terms of skill development.

2. At the very least, I need to look right. There was an incident later in the night when I tried to min-raise Q6o from the cutoff with a short stack in the big blind. I threw out the raise, then the dealer showed me that someone in front of my had already opened for 3x. With 2/3 of the raise I already out there, I had to call. Then the button called behind me, the big blind (a very good player) shoved, and the original raiser folded. I was getting better than 2:1 and was sure a shove would drive out the button, so I shipped it and sucked out on AKo. Needless to say, a lot of heads exploded over that one, and it was great for my table image. I think only the big blind and one other player at the table realized what happened and why. Explaining yourself in this kind of situation is one of the stupidest things you can do (other than not realizing there was a raise in front of you!), and I see it constantly. Own your bad play!

3. I got a double up from a usually-nitty player who has a long-standing dislike for me. With about 25BBs, I min-raised AKo, the small blind called, and the nit called from the big blind. I checked back an A73r flop three-ways. The turn was a 9, SB checked, BB bet about 1/3 pot, I 3x’ed him, SB folded, BB tanked and shoved with 66.

A while later I was back down to 24BB, and the same guy opened limped in middle position. The SB completed, and I shoved KTo. To my surprise, the nit called, and then the SB instantly shoved for a lot more. Nit went into the tank, and after about two minutes looked like he was going to call so I clocked him just in case that would change his mind. He got really upset, called me a “fucking nit”, and then said “let’s go” and called with TT. SB had QQ, and I spiked the K. Nit went on to berate me for “getting it in bad” with Q6 and KT.

The Q6 hand notwithstanding, I hadn’t been making wild shoves or anything. I don’t think I’d been all-in pre-flop at all, so I have no idea why people were limping TT and QQ on my big blind.

Play resumes at Noon. I’ve got 84K, average is about 120K, blinds 1K/2K/300. There’s 35 players remaining and I think only final table pays so still a ways to go.