Tuesday, August 29, 2006

Second Chance?

I was the victim of a most crewel and unusual hand in the Sunday second chance $215 tournament at Stars last night.

It’s a couple of hands after the 1st break and I get dealt AQo in the BB. It’s folded to the button who raises to 4 x BB. The SB checks and I put in a re-raise. At this point I figure I have a half decent hand if the button does actually have something, but chances are he was just trying a steal and is folding this most of the time.

The player on the button calls my re-raise and the flop comes Qc8c4c. Not the best flop for me but I have top pair, top kicker and The Ac for the flush draw. Villain checks and I throw in a healthy raise. He pauses and pushes his stack, which was narrowly bigger than mine, into the pot.

He could have the flush here or have caught something else he wants to protect. I have TPTK plus the flush draw, I also have just over half my stack in the pot at this point. Folding leaves me a serious short stack and needing a hand pretty soon. I call and villain flips 2c3c for the flush. I get no help and I’m out about half way through the field.

What gets me is he called a re-raise after a 4 x BB raise with 23s. Maybe I don’t get poker after all!

Saturday, August 19, 2006

WCOOP

I’m probably more likely to stick to this if I post it so here are my plans for the WCOOP this year:

Event #6 $215 NLHE with rebuys
Event #7 $215 Limit Holdem
The $215 HORSE event

I’ll probably be playing quite a few satellites to other events, so I’ll play in some of the other NLHE events if I can. I also want to make the effort to play some of the online EPT events but at the moment it looks like I may be tied up during most of them.

I had originally intended to play in the Gutshot Series of poker main event. It would have been my biggest live event to date. I now have a holiday booked over that weekend so I won’t be playing. I’ll have to save myself for the APT event in Birmingham instead.

Wednesday, August 09, 2006

WSOP

This is from Cardplayer tonight:


As we've reached our final 12 players, play has slowed considerably. Everyone remaining is now a millionaire.

Wow.

Monday, August 07, 2006

Go Humberto!

Another Sunday Million, another cash. I placed 555 last night for just under $450 maintaining my 100% record. Not the best result ever but better than nothing.

Unfortunately it wasn’t a particularly exciting tournament for me. I just couldn’t seem to win more than one pot in a row. After the first break I went from 5k to 11k, then back down to 4k, up to 14k then back down to 6k. I got moved a crazy amount of times early on, never giving me enough time to get comfortable at my table. Not a bad return from my $11 Double Shootout qualification though!

I’m a bit gutted that Annie Duke is out of the WSOP Main Event. Since everyone I know was out I decided to pick her as my favourite to take it down. It would have been nice to have a couple of high place female finishers this year but alas, they are all out.

With 45 left I think I’ll go with a shortie now to keep things interesting. I think Costa Rican Humberto Brenes still has a fighting chance with just over half a million in chips. Go Humberto!

It will be interesting to see if Pokerstars will have the ‘buy’ the winner again this year. They have 9 left of the 45 remaining. None of them are particularly big stacks, but I think a certain Mr Lynch is certainly worth keeping an eye on. He has just shy of 2 million in chips and I think he has a lot more to offer.

Thursday, August 03, 2006

WSOP Funnies

It seems the WSOP Main event attracts people (and monkeys) from all walks of life. You would think that a $10,000 buy-in would attract only people who were serious about poker. However it seems that where the ME is concerned this clearly does not apply.

I saw this on the FCP forum. I’m not sure what the original source was:

First Disqualification of the Series

A player has just been disqualified from the main event. He was putting chips into his pocket when he was caught by a floorman. The player claimed that he heard it was ok to hide chips in his pocket, but that stuff doesn't fly in the World Series. He has been disqualified, and the floorman went on to say that this was the first DQ of it's kind for the entire WSOP. His chips were confiscated and removed from play.

So we have a guy who thinks it’s okay to hide chips, a lady who though she had a straight flush with none of her suit on the board, and random celebrities such a former heavyweight champion and pretend Brit Lennox Lewis playing.

To be fair from what I have seen Lewis at least knew what he was doing. The main event has become a circus over the last few years. All it really means for better players is plenty of dead money and probably the odd frustrating outdraw. I love it though and can’t wait to get myself to Vegas one year to play.

All I can say is thank god they didn’t let the monkey play.

Tuesday, August 01, 2006

Double Shootout Fun

I played my second ever double shootout yesterday. A satellite to the Sunday Million nice and early with a small field. The only other one I have played I went out in 3rd and lost out on one of the two seats up for grabs.

The play is so bad in these it’s unreal. The one I played had 55 runners, paid two seats and $35 for 3-6. My first table started with 8 people and I honestly think some of the players thought it was a turbo. We were down to 4 by the end of the first level, and I had hardly played a hand. Heads-up my opponent had a massive chip lead. I think originally it was 10k/2k but the blinds were still so low. Cue a 45 min HU battle…

I have to admit, I really enjoyed it. I felt like I had a great read on my opponent and got myself up to about 8k. He the doubled through to take the lead after the following hand:

I raise in the SB with AQ, he called and the flop came AQx. I raised the flop in line with most of my hands played this way and he pushed. I called and he flips the mighty 84s for the flush draw.

He hits of course and now I’m back to grinding him down again. After a few ups and downs I finally took my first table with JJ Vs AA when a well timed J on the river relieved him of his last 2k.

Surprisingly the second table was worse that the first. MP pushed first hand and got TWO callers. MP has AA, the callers? AQ and KJ.

Oh my.

The player with AA in the hand above tripled and I doubled off him a few hands later. He eventually busted with AK. Three handed the blinds were getting quite high. I was able to steal with little reply and eventually ended up with about 8k Vs 4k Vs 1.2k or similar.

The 4k stack played this a bit strange I think. 2 places pay so he’s in a great position at this point. The blinds are high I’m raising every hand. I pick up QJ in the BB. He called and I raised. He calls to see a flop of Q75 rainbow. I bet out and he calls again. I’m a little confused as to why he’s getting so involved at this point when a J appears on the turn. I bet out again and he pushes. I think my curiosity got the better of me here and I called with top 2, he flips AA and gets no help and a whopping $35 for his efforts. I bet the short stack couldn’t believe his luck!

I have seen quite a bit of debate over the DS as a way to qualify, both for the WSOP and for the Sunday Million. I see them as a low cost way of playing a relatively poor field for seats you might otherwise pay 4-5 times more for in one of the rebuy satellites. I would encourage that anyone who has at least some knowledge of SNG’s to give them a go.

Some Rare Live Poker

Not a bad few days poker since my last update. Last week I played a great live tournament, which I chopped for 1st in. Some of the players were pretty good. On my original table there was a player I recognise from high stakes cash games at a local casino sitting on my left. He was the only person I was looking out for, as I have played with him before and knew a fair bit about they way he plays. I didn’t know anything about any of the other players on the table, with the exception of two players chatting to each other about poker, clearly trying to impress.

“I was playing online today and got a pair of hooks”

People giving hands their nicknames always makes me laugh.

“I raised and two people called. The flop was AKx, so I went all-in”

No prizes for guessing that one of the pre-flop callers had an ace. I later found out this particular player works in a local supermarket. Normally this wouldn’t mean much, but given that this was a re-buy tournament, and as you can imagine she bought in a fair few times, I think she probably dropped a few days wages.

She was actually a really nice lady, certainly livened up my table. True to form when I play people like this, she doubled when I flopped a straight and she rivered a flush to take the pot in a very frustrating fashion:

“Oh never mind, I though I had something”

“You have a flush”

“Does that mean I win?”

At this point the dealer decided to wake up and declare her the winner of the hand.

She actually apologised for winning the hand. I wasn’t too annoyed at this point as we still had plenty of time left in the rebuy period. About two hands later, when a very quiet player who was sitting two to my left busted, I saw that he used all of the money in his wallet to rebuy. Not the best read in the world but my live poker being as primitive as it is I decided I was happy that I picked up on it.

I was amazed at all the little things I picked up on that I never would have online. Someone I would consider to be a good player on my table had a nice ornate card protector (hand nicknames again!). Each time he intended to play a hand he left it on his cards, and when he wasn’t going to play he took it off. He stayed at my table all night and eventually busted in 3rd.

The heads-up part of this tournament was crazy. 4 handed I had half the chips at the table. Over the next 4-5 hands one of the other players busted the two remaining players to give us even stacks. I had been thinking about my strategy HU for about 10 minutes. All of it useless now as I was not facing the short stack I thought I would be.

We played HU for just under 2 blind levels. My opponent was pretty good, aggressive in the right places and I think he felt he could beat me. It was a real low M battle, and became a bit of a crapshoot.

I lost a big pot giving him a 4-1 chip lead. I pushed blind next hand and doubled. A few hands later we were even again. The next blind level was 2 minutes away and we were about to have so few BB each that it was no longer a much of a game. I worked out the average of second and first place money an offered him the chop.

He accepted so fast I was taken back a little. He later commented that it was a close match-up and it could have gone either way. He also said after a while at the final table he was happy to play anyone heads-up for the tournament except for me.

Overall I was happy with my performance. The mix of good and bad players went very well for me, and I felt confident in my ability to determine who was who. I only hope that next time I play live I can extend on this.