I was really happy with the way I was playing yesterday. The aggressive style that wins money at shorthanded 5/10 NL has been getting me into trouble in tournament play lately, but yesterday I didn’t do anything dumb: no hopeless calls, no big bluffs, and no desperation plays. I was playing solid, patient tournament poker and making some good reads. I got off to a great start in every Sunday tournament I played (FTP 750K guarantee, FTP mulligan, Stars Million, Stars Second Chance, UB 200K guarantee, and Stars $300 WCOOP main event satellite), though my results still came out fairly mediocre: I won a WCOOP (World Championship of Online Poker) seat and had a very shallow cash in the mulligan, but nothing else of note. Mostly I just lost some key coin flips, which is frustrating but ultimately fine.
The most frustrating one came in the 750K. I built up a huge stack early on by hitting two flushes, once holding bottom pair and a flush draw versus two pair, and the other time holding the nut flush draw versus top pair and top set. Obviously a lucky start, and it catapaulted into the top .5% of the field with over 2000 players remaining.
The Nasty Coinflip
With 800 players left, I was still in good shape, sitting on an above average stack of about 17K at the 250/500 level. Action folded to the SB, who had about 20K. He had been aggressive, so I put him on a wide range when he open raised to 1500. I was holding 44. Against more passive players, I’ll just call and take a flop in position, as I have a better idea what kind of flops will help them and how they will play post-flop. But against this guy, I was less inclined to do that, because I wasn’t going to know what to do on most flops.
My instinct was to make it 4500 or so, but I think I need to call his all in once I do that, and it gives him room to shove a lot of weakish hands that are still 50/50 against me because he may think he has fold equity. So, I decided just to stick the whole 17K in myself. This was a big bet, 6-7 times the size of the pot, and not something to do often. But here, I felt better pairs would be a small part of his range and that I could knock him off of quite a few hands that consisted of two overcards to my 4’s. So I shoved, and he called me with KQ and won the coin flip.
I was pretty shocked by his call at the time, and I still think it’s bad, but it’s not as bad as I thought. I probably don’t have a hand that dominates him, as stuff like AQ+ and QQ+ is too strong to play the way I played my hand, so he doesn’t figure to be in bad shape against me. Maybe I even show up with KT-KJ once in a while (from his perspective, anyway)?
But enough whining. Here are some pretty heroic river calls I made. Even though none of them was a particularly important hand, they made me feel as though I were making good reads and playing well.
First Hand
This one, from the Stars Million, wasn’t as tricky as I initially thought:
PokerStars No-Limit Hold’em Tourney, Big Blind is t200 (8 handed) Hand History converter Courtesy of PokerZion.com
MP1 (t2758)
Hero (t13250)
CO (t3855)
Button (t12895)
SB (t6661)
BB (t4186)
UTG (t14630)
UTG+1 (t9843)
Preflop: Hero is MP2 with Jd, Js.
UTG raises to t550, 2 folds, Hero calls t550, 4 folds.
Flop: (t1170) Td, Tc, Kh (2 players)
UTG checks, Hero bets t690, UTG calls t690.
Turn: (t2550) As (2 players)
UTG checks, Hero checks.
River: (t2550) Ad (2 players)
UTG bets t1800, Hero calls t1800.
Final Pot: t6150
Villain in this hand was somewhat aggressive and seemed like a decent player overall. With these stacks, a reraise pre-flop is certainly defensible, but for whatever reason I called, which I think is fine, too.
This is a good board for him to continuation bet, so when he checks, I put him on a hand with showdown value that wants to play a small pot. That could be a K, a pocket pair, or maybe even A-high, probably with a gut shot. However, I felt like he wouldn’t be playing a lot of K’s here and may not play them like this anyway, and that he’d usually bet something like AJ, so that the most likely explanation was that he was checking with a pair smaller than mine planning to call a bet. So I bet.
An Ace was not what I wanted to see. I’m not too worried that it hit him, but it means I’m not likely to win anything more if he does have a smaller pair, because it’s another scare card for him. Another Ace on the river makes me feel good about my hand, but then he bets. I tanked for a while before I realized that the river counterfeited small pairs and he could be trying to bluff me off of a chop. I called and beat his 77. Not such a heroic spot, really, but the next one is good.
Hand 2
This was from the Full Tilt mulligan. I didn’t have any kind of read on my opponent.
Full Tilt Poker No-Limit Hold’em Tourney, Big Blind is t30 (9 handed) Hand History converter Courtesy of PokerZion.com
Button (t3090)
Hero (t4170)
BB (t2335)
UTG (t2590)
UTG+1 (t1060)
MP1 (t2895)
MP2 (t2885)
MP3 (t4690)
CO (t3285)
Preflop: Hero is SB with Jd, Ks.
7 folds, Hero completes, BB checks.
Flop: (t60) 7h, Ah, 5c (2 players)
Hero bets t60, BB calls t60.
Turn: (t180) 6c (2 players)
Hero checks, BB checks.
River: (t180) Ts (2 players)
Hero checks, BB bets t180, Hero calls t180.
Final Pot: t540
I often raise this pre-flop, but against random unknowns early in a tournament, it can be tricky to play out of position because some of them will call almost anything pre-flop and sometimes on the flop as well. In other words, they accidentally play pretty well against a hand like mine. So I keep the pot small and limp.
When he doesn’t raise pre-flop, I discount Aces from his range, though they aren’t impossible. So I bet out to protect what figures to be the best hand. Against someone I know to be aggressive, checking and calling is good, but most people are too passive to put in any money unless they have something, so there’s no point in giving a free card. Whoops, he calls. That could be a pair, a draw, or just whatever air he didn’t feel like folding.
I checked the turn figuring he would let me know what’s up. There are so many draws out there that he can’t afford to slowplay, so if he doesn’t bet, I’m putting him on a draw. If he bluffs with a draw, as he should, then he wins the pot. But he checks.
Then he pots a blank river. This a great example of an instance where his range is polarized. He’s going to have either a busted draw or a very strong hand, probably a good two pair or better. There’s just no way he can check a big hand on such a draw-heavy turn, so unless he has like T5 and made an ugly two pair on the river, he’s going to have a missed draw. And most of his missed draws are weaker than KJ high, so I call and get show 24o for a busted gutshot.
His flop call is fine if he’s going to bluff the turn and maybe the river, since I’m often going to give up and sometimes he’ll get there. But to call pot on the flop with a trashy draw and then just check the turn when your hand has no showdown value is just bad, and then he compounded it with a bad bluff on the river.
Can’t Complain
So like I said, I can’t complain. I had some good luck early on, played well, then had some bad luck later. It happens, and thanks to the satellite, I was up a modest amount even on tournaments. But I really can’t complain because I won a bunch at the 5/10 NL tables I had going at the same time as my tournaments. Gawd, why do I even waste my time with tournaments any more? They are like crack, I just can’t get off them! I haven’t had a lot of time to play poker lately, but when I do, it’s been mostly tournaments. By the way, my girlfriend is coming to visit for the week, then a friend from high school is coming for the weekend, so it will definitely be a slow poker week and probably slow in terms of blog updates as well. But I should have another article coming in the September 2+2 magazine, so I’ll let you know when that’s available.