I am going to catch everyone up on my last two tournaments now. A few details may be inaccurate due to my delay in writing, but here we go...
I flew out to Vegas on Monday June 11 to do some recruiting and to play a couple poker tournaments. I had to withdraw from Monday's tournament as I wanted to watch my boy Gregg play his WSOP Event #19. He was the chip leader going into Day 3 and finished 5th out of over 2300 players. Awesome job! And of course the steak dinner was on him. Only Gregg would whine about the price of a bottle of wine after winning over 128K! Next time you final table Gregg I'm ordering the Caymus Special Select. HA!!
http://www.cardplayer.com/poker-tournaments/3743-2012-43rd-annual-world-series-of-poker/1094345/results
Tuesday June 12th I entered the Venetian Deep Stack $600 buy in event. It attracted 572 players. We started with 15,000 chips and 40 minute levels. The structure is not as good as a WSOP event but still excellent and affords a lot of skill in one's play. My goal coming into the tournament was to find some good spots early and get my chip stack up, so of course I was down quite a few chips after the first couple levels! The key in poker is to always play YOUR chip stack at every stage of the tournament. Don't worry about the average stack size, don't worry about how many players are left, etc... just play your table and your chip stack as best you can. I will attempt to recreate some key hands now:
HAND REPLAY #1
With the blinds 100/200 a player raised in early position to 450. I called with 77. The button re-raised to 1200 and we both called. It cost me 750 more to call into a pot 3150 so not only was I getting great odds to call both players were deep stacked, so the opportunity was there to win a huge pot. The pot was now 3900 after my call and the flop came out AcQc7c. The first player checked. I chose to check here and give the raiser a chance to bluff if he missed everything. He checked as well. The turn was a blank (a blank is a card that doesn't change the nature of the board, in this case a blank would be a card like 4d - it doesn't make 4 to a flush, it doesn't make another straight card, etc.) and first player checked. I bet 2000 and the button called. The first player folded. The pot is now 7900. The river was a Q so I now had a full house. More importantly, the question is what did the raiser have?
- If he has an A he is trying to keep the pot as small as he can since his hand can win the pot. I think he will call a river bet.
- If he has a Q he was doing the same thing until the river; now he really likes his hand. He will definitely call a river bet and possibly raise me. Not likely, but possible.
- If he had a pair with a club, such as 99c, he probably doesn't call my river bet but he certainly doesn't bet the river himself since his hand has some chance of winning. I must bet.
- If he had nothing on the flop he certainly won't call a river bet, but in this case he would have bet the flop himself to try and win the pot since he re-raised pre flop and was showing strength. I don't think this scenario is likely.
- The ONLY hand he can have where I can check and let him bluff is a hand like Kc9 or KcT where he was hoping to make his draw but missed. This scenario is possible but I think he might have taken a stab at the pot in this case.
Given his range of hands I decided to bet 5100. I think he has an A here more often than the other hands, but after a short deliberation he chose to fold. Your goal when you flop monster hands is to maximize your winnings as they don't come along too often. The reality is that your opponent needs a hand as well. Did I play this perfectly? I don't know. Maybe a lead out bet was better, but he probably folds a hand like 99c in that case so maybe I made 2000 I wouldn't have.
REPLAY HAND #2
I can't remember too many more hands that came about. What I do remember is my chip stack dwindled as the blinds increased and I soon found myself in the 20-25bb range. I think you need to be extremely careful about wasting chips in this range. If you are going to steal you really want to make sure you have a good read on the situation and/or your opponent. My stack fell under 20bb and I found myself folding hands like 33/44/AT utg when I was in the 16-18bb range. I do give myself a lot of credit here. Most players, when card dead and their chips shrinking, would take these spots and shove their chips in and hope they win. I chose to pass and wait for a better spot. It soon came up. The utg player raised 2.2bb (translation: the under the gun player raised an amount of 2.2 times the big blind. So if we were at 300/600 he raised to around 1300.) This player was excellent and had a lot of chips so I would expect he is raising a solid hand but maybe not a premium one. A late position player moved all in for around 10,000 chips. I looked down in the big blind and saw KK. Time to get them in! I moved all in for around 14,000 chips, the utg player mucked his AJd face up and the other player tabled AsT. The board ran KsQsTsTJs. Thank goodness he didn't have the As in his hand!! I scooped the pot and had room to play again.
REPLAY HAND #3
A while later I r1400 with 88. (I am assuming the blinds were 300/600/75 but am not certain.) The "crazy asian" called from late position and the big blind called. The pot was around 5100. The flop came out 4c5d6h. The bb checked, I bet 4000, call and fold. The pot is now 13000. The turn card was the Td. I checked and he bet 6500. I called. The river was a 5d and I checked again. He now bet 20,000! This call is for most of my chips; if I call and lose I am basically out of the tournament, so let's review the hand.
- He calls me on the flop so he has something.
- He bet relatively small on the turn after I showed weakness so I think he's taking an inexpensive shot at winning the hand. If he had a big hand he would have either raised me on the flop or bet more on the turn to protect his hand.
- His river bet screams that he wants me out of the pot. One other thing: as I was looking at him he appeared very aloof, trying to act relaxed. I am certainly not basing my tournament decision on a physical tell but in my experience this look means weakness, trying to act relaxed and strong.
- Put this all together and what does he have?
- A hand with a 7 in it makes a lot of sense. He called the flop to try and hit, took a weak stab at winning on turn when I showed weakness and now is taking desperation shot on the river by threatening me with my tournament life.
- 5X hand. It's possible as this guy basically made all his chips during the tournament with crap starting hands, but I think he checks the turn if he has a pair. His hand can win if I have an AK type hand.
- Flush. Would he really call the flop with nothing, hoping to go runner runner diamond? Very unlikely.
- TX hand? Again, why would he call the flop, and he would bet smaller on the river, trying to get some value.
AFTER THE DINNER BREAK
I was now in very healthy shape with I think over 50bb. My plan was to stay active, three bet when I felt it would work and do whatever I could to grow my chip stack. And as usual, poker didn't go according to plan! I didn't get any hands to work with and didn't make anything happen. I remember twice the crazy asian raised from early position, I folded my 83, and the great player on my left three bet him and made him fold. Maybe he had a hand? Maybe he just knew he could make the player fold. Maybe it should have been me three betting..... players continued to drop out as we got closer to the money bubble (they paid the top 54 players) and I was moved to a new table. My first look around told me there were some very skilled players at my table. And on the first hand player A raised and player B re-raised to take the pot. On the very next hand player B raised, player A re-raised from the bb and player B moved all in! Player A called with QQ and player B proudly (or sheepishly) turned over 65d! Geez, his tournament down in flames with 6 high... these young kids...
I continued to fold my garbage and found myself with 25bb as the blinds continued to grow. At that point a "pro", Doug Lee, sat down two seats to my right. He's been on tv numerous times but I put the word "pro" in quotation marks because being on tv or cashing for big money does not make you a pro. Great play and studying the game and focusing on getting better makes you a pro. Anyone can get good cards or get lucky. In golfing terms, if my professional buddies Derrick and Will are +2 handicaps I'd give Doug a 4-5 handicap at best.
REPLAY HANDS 4/5/6/7
A while later I had about 25bb. With the blinds 2000/4000 I raised utg with AK. Doug Lee called from the sb. The flop came out 89T. About as bad as you can get. He checked I checked. He has a piece of that flop a lot of times, and I really don't want to waste any chips finding out if he does or doesn't. The turn came an 8. He bet, I folded. Let's move on....
I finally found a hand! QQ. One hand every five hours - not bad... I raised 9000 utg and Doug Lee called from the sb and the bb called. The flop came out QcJc6d. The pot is about 32000. They checked and I bet 17000. Doug called, the bb folded. The pot is now 66000 and I have 61,000 behind. The turn is a 4h. He checks. I can move all in and protect my hand, OR I can go for maximum value. It's rare these hands come along so I am going for maximum value. I get 30,000. He tanks and calls. The pot is now 126,000. The river is 5c. It's important to plan your hand as you go along, and my plan for betting small on the turn is to call any river bet that comes along. If he out draws me so be it. He puts me all in and I immediately call. He says "I have a J". I show my hand and scoop the pot. Notice how poor his play is. Any professional would call the flop, but when I bet small on the turn he/she would notice that I am trying to tie him/her to the pot with a big hand. I am not going to bet small on the turn and go all in for 31000, making a pot of 157,000 and only 31,000 for my opponent to call. That would be a horrible bluff and any pro would notice this. That one mistake there by Doug tells me he is not a quality player by any stretch.
Not only that, but Doug starts losing it! He starts rocking in his chair and breathing heavily after that pot - I've never seen anything like it. The very next hand a player raised and Doug immediately moved all in and won the pot. The very next hand Doug raised the cutoff to 8500. I looked down at 99 in the sb and am 98% certain I have the best hand. I re-raised him to 24000 to get him heads up. He thought for awhile and called. The flop came out AsK9s. I bet 24000 and he tanked before moving all in. Well, he out flopped me so I have to fold. But I'm going to take my time and make him sweat it out. As I look at him he is breathing really heavy! HA! He says to me "that's a bad flop for your JJ/QQ. You have to fold. Yep, bad flop, etc." He's trying to egg me into calling. I fold eventually and he shows the 4c and says "I had 44 but knew you couldn't call". YEAH RIGHT! This junkie called my three bet with A4 (probably A4c) hoping to hit his three outer with not a lot of chips behind. A horrible play that a professional would never make. He has to either muck his hand pre-flop or put me all in and put the ultimate pressure on me. If he put me all in and couldn't get me to fold my 99 he at least would have a 30% chance to win the hand... the best part of all this: for the next 20 minutes he tried to convince me he had pocket 4's!! Two other guys at the table and I were thoroughly enjoying his monkey show. That pot hurt. We could have added another 25,000 chips to our stack instead of losing 50,000. Such is poker.
A while later a player opened with a raise. A quick look at his stack showed he had around 25bb. This is a perfect stack size to three bet, and for a great explanation of why read Derrick's blog:
dypoker.blogspot.com
I looked down at 98d and three bet him small. Everyone folded back to him, he thought for a long time (it's called tanking in the poker world) and mucked his hand. We earned some important chips there! I stole the blinds a few times by raising the weak player's big blind. We finished the night with 39 players remaining and I bagged up 225,000 chips. I had 29bb going into day 2.
DAY 2
Chad and Eric did some internet research for me on the players at my table. It's always important to know your opponents. Although you can usually tell by looking if your opponent is good or not, it's good to do research. Has he cashed a lot which means he's probably a more skilled player? Does he have big cashes which means he will be more likely to play to win? Does he have a few small cashes which means he might be more likely to just move up the pay ladder? As it turned out, our table had a bunch of short stacked players and our table was the first to break! A couple key hands came up when I got moved and we were down to the final three tables:
With the blinds 4000/8000 I opened to 17000 from the button with KT. The sb folded and the bb re raised me to 34000. He had me covered in chips. I small three bet like that from out of position either represents a really strong hand or a cheap attempt to steal it with a weaker hand. I chose to give it up as he didn't look like the typical young aggressive opponent. He was an older gentleman so I chose to give him credit. When I discussed the hand with Derrick later he told me I could call on the button in position and see a flop. I just didn't feel like I had enough chips to speculate at the time, but next time I will definitely consider that option a lot stronger.
With the blinds 5000/10000 the cutoff opened to 21,000. He was another older tighter player so even though he was first to open the pot he has a stronger hand. A skilled player with chips would open here with a wide range of hands, meaning along with his great hands he would raise with J7d, 86h, Q5s, etc. trying to win the blinds and antes. I looked down from the button to see 77. I had 17-18bb. The correct play here is to move all in. If he folds I win his bet plus the blinds and antes. If he calls there's a very good chance I'm up again AQ, KQ type hands and have a coin flip to double up. However, earlier in the tournament I stayed alive by passing on very marginal spots and doing my best to wait for something better and not panic. If it was a younger player that raised I would have moved all in without any thought. I chose to fold my hand. Maybe I was thinking about the 77 hand I lost with a couple weeks ago to the older guys' AA? Mostly I was folding because I had stayed away from close spots during the tournament. However, at the end of the tournament, when the pay jumps are big, I think the chips become really important and it's worth the gamble to hope he doesn't have a bigger pair. Next time I am in this spot I will take it.
We got down to two tables and the best hand I was was an A6. I chose to fold it as I was utg+1 and had to get through the rest of the table. I had only 12bb and was getting called by any reasonable hand. A lot of pros move all in here but I am ok with passing in this spot. Maybe as I discuss this with Derrick more I will have a change of heart! I folded my bb and sb and moved all in from the button with 87 when it was folded to me. I have much more fold equity here as I only have to get two players to fold as opposed to seven players in the previous situation. They both folded. A couple hands later a player opened and I moved all in with AKs. Everyone folded and the original raiser tanked and folded. Damn! I needed a double up with that hand!! The next round I moved all in from the cutoff with AQ. Now I want a call! With only 12-13bb I am going to get called by AJ,AT, maybe A9s/A8s and all pairs. These are all hands that I am in great shape with. Even if I get called with KK I still am a 30% favorite to win, so there would be hope. Unfortunately the bb called and showed AA. Are you kidding me?! I get AA ZERO times the entire tournament (KK one time) and now it shows up against me when I have AQ? Wow. Well, the board ran Q864A and I was out in 15th place.
I cashed for $3550 after tipping (they already have tip built into the buy in so you don't need to go crazy when giving an additional tip). It was possibly the best tournament I've ever played from start to finish. Not one time did I get a big double up with pair over smaller pair, set vs top pair, win a race, etc... I just never got dealt those hands. One day soon I will get a couple fortunate hands and will have that big win. Until then I will continue to study, reflect and get better so I will be ready when my time comes.
Results website:
http://www.venetian.com/uploadedFiles/The_Venetian/Content_Blocks/Gaming/Deepstack_Extravaganza/2012_Deep_Stack_III/Event_20-June-12-2012.pdf
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