A Live Tournament
The intention with this blog is for it to become a combination of an up-to-date poker diary, intermingled with the occasional background post not directly relevant to the day I am posting.
So far I've mainly been catching up (probably 1 or 2 more posts on that), but I need to record the poker tournament I played in on Friday night.
It was organised by a friend of mine as a charity fundraiser. £15 went to a hospice, and then it was a £10 tourny with rebuys for the first 90 minutes.
There were some costs for the event - hiring of the room etc - and I'm not sure if this money was deducted from the prize pool or the charity funds, and I won't know as I wasn't counting the rebuys. Unless I was in some way the best player there I knew with that juice it wasn't an +EV tournament, but it still seemed like fun - and he is a mate and all - so I signed up.
There were 24 runners, with the top 3 places paying. To be fair the venue was pretty good and it was organised and run well.
My biggest worry was the fact we were playing at 6-seater tables, and short-handed play is not my forte, so I was having to adjust to that.
We started off with IIRC 1500 chips, and I managed to treble that up within the first half-hour by flopping two-pair three times. The most profitable was holding A5 on the button. It was folded around to me so I raised 3x the BB, only for the small blind who I had been chatting to before the game, and seemed confident but not hugely skilled to min-reraise me. I called this (perhaps loosely) and saw a A85 flop.
He bet 1/2 the pot or so, I raised to 2.5 time his bet and he called.
Turn a K. He bets the same amount as previously. I think for a bit. I'm now behind a lot of re-raising hands (KK and AK are added to the mix) but I got the feeling he wasn't that sure and put him all in. He thought for a bit and called, turning over 99. He can only have put me on air.
Annoyingly I managed to piss away all my chips over the next 45 minutes or so - most annoyingly a 800 or so to a friend of mine who plays very tight, so I should have been wary of his aggression. I often feel people I know are targetting me, so called with KJ on a Jxx board and saw him turn over QQ.
I lost the last of my chips shortly before the rebuy period ended, and was considering not buying back in, but I was having quite a good time, and I wasn't at all worried by the opposition. In fact it was by some way the weakest live tournament I have played in, so, what the hell. (Evidence for general lack of experience was the few people who could understand the side-pots for a 3-way all-in, and the fact I was the only person who understood how to race chips. Nicely this happened at the start of the final table so I was able to imtimidate some of the players I think).
So I rebought, and added on and then started playing a small stack (2000, with blinds 100/200). It was clear noone knew how to play short-stacks, and were staggered when I opened pushed (with air IIRC). I inched up, then finally hit some hands (AK v KJ; A3 v K3) and soon it was final table time.
6 players, and the 1 to my left was either a brilliant actor or was incredibly drunk, a poor player and had hit loads of cards, leading to a sizeable chip lead (opinion was divided ).
Evidence that he was a poor player is provided by him not bullying his previous table, telling people what his cards were, folding when it was checked to him, and playing a rivered 2-pair appallingly (check-calling).
I concluded he was a drunken idiot (DI). He was indirectly to prove my downfall.
Everyone else was reasonable but not great.
Early doors I pick up AJs in the CO and UTG goes all-in for ~1100 with blinds at 2/400. He should be doing that with any two, and I am certainly good for a call (I've got ~6000). I'm well ahead of his range, but I think for a while and push to get it heads up. I'm not sure if this is correct play or not. I think so, as I don't like my hand if someone behind me wakes up with a medium pair and raises me. Anyway he turns over 99 (fine) I flop a flush and clear up.
Quite quickly we're 4-handed and I've a reasonable player on my right, and DI on my left. My blinds are getting attacked, and I am (probably stupidly) not attacking the DI's as I suspect he'll be calling very light. More annoyingly still, myself and the player on DI's left are the two shorties, but DI is just passing chips left, meaning I am struggling to stay afloat.
I make two mistakes I think. In the BB I make a big raise w/air when the SB completes. He calls and leads the flop for about 2/3 my stack and I have to let it go. He's never folded the SB, but the limp looked (with hindsight) suspicious. A round later UTG I should have pushed when getting very short stacked (8k, with blinds at 1/2k), but I decide to see what happens in the next few hands but my FE has gone down so much from then on I guess I'm better off pushing with the 84o I was dealt.
I end up moving in for the remaining 5k on the button with K3o, but while DI is thinking about folding (everything took him ages) I see the BB counting out the amount to call and I know I'm in trouble. He turns over A9, and I'm done. Out in 4th, where everyone else gets at least a ton. Sigh.
Actually I enjoyed my first live final table much less than I thought I would, largely because DI was playing so slowly, but the evening was very good overall.
The other point for me was a couple of people who were clearly not much cop poker-wise were at least occasional players down the gutshot, which I've been thinking about going to, but have never really summoned up the courage as I always suspected the standard was very high. Looks like I may be wrong.
So far I've mainly been catching up (probably 1 or 2 more posts on that), but I need to record the poker tournament I played in on Friday night.
It was organised by a friend of mine as a charity fundraiser. £15 went to a hospice, and then it was a £10 tourny with rebuys for the first 90 minutes.
There were some costs for the event - hiring of the room etc - and I'm not sure if this money was deducted from the prize pool or the charity funds, and I won't know as I wasn't counting the rebuys. Unless I was in some way the best player there I knew with that juice it wasn't an +EV tournament, but it still seemed like fun - and he is a mate and all - so I signed up.
There were 24 runners, with the top 3 places paying. To be fair the venue was pretty good and it was organised and run well.
My biggest worry was the fact we were playing at 6-seater tables, and short-handed play is not my forte, so I was having to adjust to that.
We started off with IIRC 1500 chips, and I managed to treble that up within the first half-hour by flopping two-pair three times. The most profitable was holding A5 on the button. It was folded around to me so I raised 3x the BB, only for the small blind who I had been chatting to before the game, and seemed confident but not hugely skilled to min-reraise me. I called this (perhaps loosely) and saw a A85 flop.
He bet 1/2 the pot or so, I raised to 2.5 time his bet and he called.
Turn a K. He bets the same amount as previously. I think for a bit. I'm now behind a lot of re-raising hands (KK and AK are added to the mix) but I got the feeling he wasn't that sure and put him all in. He thought for a bit and called, turning over 99. He can only have put me on air.
Annoyingly I managed to piss away all my chips over the next 45 minutes or so - most annoyingly a 800 or so to a friend of mine who plays very tight, so I should have been wary of his aggression. I often feel people I know are targetting me, so called with KJ on a Jxx board and saw him turn over QQ.
I lost the last of my chips shortly before the rebuy period ended, and was considering not buying back in, but I was having quite a good time, and I wasn't at all worried by the opposition. In fact it was by some way the weakest live tournament I have played in, so, what the hell. (Evidence for general lack of experience was the few people who could understand the side-pots for a 3-way all-in, and the fact I was the only person who understood how to race chips. Nicely this happened at the start of the final table so I was able to imtimidate some of the players I think).
So I rebought, and added on and then started playing a small stack (2000, with blinds 100/200). It was clear noone knew how to play short-stacks, and were staggered when I opened pushed (with air IIRC). I inched up, then finally hit some hands (AK v KJ; A3 v K3) and soon it was final table time.
6 players, and the 1 to my left was either a brilliant actor or was incredibly drunk, a poor player and had hit loads of cards, leading to a sizeable chip lead (opinion was divided ).
Evidence that he was a poor player is provided by him not bullying his previous table, telling people what his cards were, folding when it was checked to him, and playing a rivered 2-pair appallingly (check-calling).
I concluded he was a drunken idiot (DI). He was indirectly to prove my downfall.
Everyone else was reasonable but not great.
Early doors I pick up AJs in the CO and UTG goes all-in for ~1100 with blinds at 2/400. He should be doing that with any two, and I am certainly good for a call (I've got ~6000). I'm well ahead of his range, but I think for a while and push to get it heads up. I'm not sure if this is correct play or not. I think so, as I don't like my hand if someone behind me wakes up with a medium pair and raises me. Anyway he turns over 99 (fine) I flop a flush and clear up.
Quite quickly we're 4-handed and I've a reasonable player on my right, and DI on my left. My blinds are getting attacked, and I am (probably stupidly) not attacking the DI's as I suspect he'll be calling very light. More annoyingly still, myself and the player on DI's left are the two shorties, but DI is just passing chips left, meaning I am struggling to stay afloat.
I make two mistakes I think. In the BB I make a big raise w/air when the SB completes. He calls and leads the flop for about 2/3 my stack and I have to let it go. He's never folded the SB, but the limp looked (with hindsight) suspicious. A round later UTG I should have pushed when getting very short stacked (8k, with blinds at 1/2k), but I decide to see what happens in the next few hands but my FE has gone down so much from then on I guess I'm better off pushing with the 84o I was dealt.
I end up moving in for the remaining 5k on the button with K3o, but while DI is thinking about folding (everything took him ages) I see the BB counting out the amount to call and I know I'm in trouble. He turns over A9, and I'm done. Out in 4th, where everyone else gets at least a ton. Sigh.
Actually I enjoyed my first live final table much less than I thought I would, largely because DI was playing so slowly, but the evening was very good overall.
The other point for me was a couple of people who were clearly not much cop poker-wise were at least occasional players down the gutshot, which I've been thinking about going to, but have never really summoned up the courage as I always suspected the standard was very high. Looks like I may be wrong.
posted by PP at 11:11 PM
1 Comments:
Hello mate, I was at this tourney as well, must admit, im suprised by some of the comments you have posted on here and whilst you are completely and utterly entitled to them i feel compelled to ask that you go in to the next one, if you should choose to play it with a slightly more open mind. I recommend that you not be so analytical and statistic based in your play, once I saw how you were betting, it was pretty easy to see how you were playing, hence why we generally never continued to a showdown after I put out the correct bet. As for the 3 way all in I asked for the TD to oversee the pot purely in the interests of fairness and possibly due to the fact i had the nuts.
I would be interested to know how long you have been playing and whether it has been online or bricks and mortar.
It interests me that DI's antics managed to put you on tilt quite easily and would have thought someone of your standard would not let that affect you. You will see people a hell of alot worse than that if you decide to expose yourself to more tournaments private or not.
I would also like to mention about your comment of no-one playing the small stack, im amazed you can call this after seeing very little small stack play, after I managed to gift away a large percentage of my chips on the very first final table hand, partly to move some of the pressure off me, partly to see how DI was going to be playing the hands he got, i went down to a low amount of chips and subsequently went on to win the tournament.
I look forward to facing you at the next one.
Regards,
Hood
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