Thursday’s $560 at the Venetian
Today’s tournament didn’t start like the others have: I didn’t have a lot of success early. I had quite a few marginal hands that didn’t go my way and a couple big ones that didn’t either.
I did my share of isolating and continuation betting the first 2 rounds, but I don’t think I took down a pot. I was picking text-book boards to do it on but nothing really went in my favor. The first big hand was at 100/200 and I’ve got 12,000 chips after starting with 15,000.
There had been a lot of limping and horrible play on my table, including people turning made hands into bluffs and really no idea at all on how to play poker. In this hand, UTG raises to 525 and a big donkey in MP, tired of losing his pots postflop, has decided to just shove preflop when he wants to play a hand. He’s down to 6,000 chips and just shoves them all in at 100/200 with no antes. I look down in the SB with KK and snap call; UTG folds and the MP Donkey flips up AJo… a pretty bad shove and standard fold in that spot. Flop comes Axx and I brick out and lose to the bad beat and I’m down to 6000 chips.
We’re still at 100/200 no antes and I pick up AJo on the button, it folds to CO who open limps and I raise to 800. My plan was to check behind any flop I wasn’t prepared to get it all in with since I have position and my opponent seemed like a donkey. He calls and the flop comes 9s 7c 3c; CO Checks, I check. Turn brings the Js; CO Checks I bet 1000 into the 1900 pot and CO Calls. I don’t put him on any kind of flush draw as if he had the draw there would be a real good chance he’d bet that turn into me instead of c/c. He can’t have much more than just TP because he would raise any two pair/set given the stack sizes and the drawy boards so I figure I have pretty much the near nuts. The river brings the 2c and he fires 2300 into the 3900 pot and I’m confused. Even though the flush hit I’m fairly confident he doesn’t have it. I think he is just block betting me with a worse J but he wont call a shove with much worse than 2 pair so I decide to flat. CO shows Jh 2h for the concealed river two pair and I am confirmed on his donkey status; also my read was right but who puts anyone on J2? He said later it was his favorite hand.
Now I’m down to 2000 chips and EP open limps–I pick up TT in Late Position and just stick it in. For some reason EP decided to bluff catch with KJo and I win my coin flip and double up to 4000 chips right before break.
I’m still not out of the water or anything; blinds are going to 100/200 after break and I’ll pretty much be in push/fold mode. Within 5 minutes after break though the same guy who limp/called the KJ now open shoves his stack (roughly 4200) and I look down and see AA. Nice. I get my chips in and he has me covered by only 1 BB or so–What’s this?! A lady over calls behind and we have a 3-way all-in! Woot! The original raiser had 88 and the overcaller behind had JJ, fairly standard IMO other than the guy’s open shove with 88. I flop top set and hold on to triple up to 12,000 chips; I’m still not at my starting stack but compared to 2000 chips 12,000 sure feels like a lot.
Here’s where the wheels fall off unfortunately. Blinds are still 100/200/25 but it is the last hand before going up to 200/400/25, so I’ll be going from 60 bb to 30 bb. I pick up Tc6c in the big blind and UTG makes it real cheap, like 525 to my left and gets a cold caller. I figure now’s probably the last time I’ll be able to see a cheap flop multiway with a hand like this so I take the opportunity. The flop comes 4d4s3c and I check, UTG raiser checks and the cold caller checks behind; I figure everyone bricked and I’ll be leading most non J+ boards on the turn and take it down quite often. Fortunately for me I pick up a monster draw on the turn: 5c, giving me the open-ended straight and flush draw. I bet 1500 into the 2000 pot to discourage a loose call and I was surprised to see the original preflop raiser make the call. He can’t have much in this spot, possibly on the very bottom of his value calling range and not willing to go much farther. He either has like Ace high or another type of draw that, even if I miss if I fire again I’ll be able to take it down; if I hit a 6 or a T for top pair I’ll probably c/c. The river brings an offsuit Q; I guess it completes a couple of his TP to go with his draws but that would only be like AQ/KcQc/QcJc and that isn’t very many combinations. I fire 2300 into 5000 pot, a very intentional small bet but looking back at it now I thought the pot was 4000 and not 5000. Making it under half pot there on the river is asking for a lot of trouble but to be honest I wasn’t expecting my opponent to fold a pair regardless and I wanted to look like I was going for small value. My opponent quickly calls and shows TT and I was very confused. I didn’t expect him to check that weak of an overpair on the flop multiway but it is possible that I don’t have enough value betting ranges in me that my hand looked like a bluff. Either way I lost 1/3 of my stack and I’m down to 8000 chips.
I was able maintain my chip stack at 8000 until 300/600/50, giving me 12.5 bb. UTG Shoves all in for 13,000 chips; something that he had done previously and is the same guy who cracked my KK earlier with AJo. I was really up in the air on if I should get this hand in or not (I had 88), especially since the blinds are going up to 400/800/100 in less than 5 minutes and I’m going to be on life support soon. I take a minute to think about it; he basically never has QQ-AA maybe even JJ in this spot because he’s going to want action on those–even if he is extremely weak and poor. So the hands that he has me crushed are pretty much 99-TT and maybe JJ 50% of the time or so; if he ever shoves there with 66-77 then it basically counteracts the equity from the domination. There might be 3-6 dangling combinations where I have only 20% equity. However, if you throw in the AJ+ of his shoves and maybe even KQ (which would be fairly standard for the player that weak) then that is 48 maybe 64 combinations where I’m a 55% favorite. So if you include KQ I’m a 55% favorite 90% of the time and 20% favorite 10% of the time which gives me: (55*.9 + 2*.1) or 51.5 % equity(ish) and I make the call. Obviously I didn’t do that in my head at the table but that is what I was thinking about and now that I think about it it was a standard call. My opponent flips up TT and I don’t catch up and bust out just before the 2nd break.
Whatever bug I had seems to be letting up, even if only marginally. I had only a few ill feelings during today’s 4 hour session so it looks like I will be finishing up the day tomorrow with another $560. Finally, I’d like to mention I did get 1 walk in the big blind at 300/600/50 with only 15 minutes and it was the only one of the entire tournament. Unfortunately I had KK in the big blind, which pretty much was a spit in the face given that at least 1 person was raising every other hand before and after that.