Venitian, Final Tournament
For the first time in several days I’m starting this tournament not feeling bad so I take my seat. It wasn’t long before I realized I had a horrible table draw. The three guys to my left were all online regulars and the player to my right was a solid player from the day before. Out of a field of 600 I got stuck with probably the toughest table of the entire tournament.
There weren’t too many hands today, although I don’t think I won any that saw a flop. There was a player from New York to my left who knew his terminology and could accurately describe ranges, he just wasn’t that great and he liked to talk a lot. He lost 1/2 his stack when he 4bet/folded QQ vs the internet kid to his left. On a hierarchy of bad plays, 4bet/folding QQ is much, much worse than 3bet/folding and I don’t think there is a worse way to actually play the hand (open folding saves you 4000 chips lmao).
So the New Yorker was down to only 9000 chips and everyone else had 15,000 or so. UTG open raises and he’s an OK player, I have no idea what his UTG raising range is but when I see AK I don’t want to make the mistake of 3bet/folding AK. It’s a very standard situation for me to just call and keep all his dominated hands in his range as well as use some deception. So i call the t450 raise and the New Yorker to my left reraises 1/2 his stack up to 5000 even. UTG thinks and then folds and I said “I’ll gamble with you” and ship it in. Both of us flip over AKo and I managed to dodge a flush by him to chop the pot.
That hand sets me up for my next scenario. I get QQ and I face an MP raise; his range is somewhat wide but I don’t think his calling 3bet range is that wide and frankly we’re 100 bb deep. I decide to cold call his 5bb open raise (although sometimes I’ll reraise with a better read) and the New Yorker behind me rather quickly shoves in all his chips, approximately 7000 at blinds of 75/150. The original preflop raiser hemmed and heehawed enough for me to know that if he calls all in then I’ll be shipping afterwards because I have him crushed. He folded though (I later found out he had 99) and I again said “I’ll gamble with you” and flip over QQ. To my surprise the New Yorker actually had KK. The board ran out: A2345 and we chop the pot; I got lucky but there wasn’t much I could do about it. I was thinking later about how good players make their hands easy to play by not putting themselves in difficult situations. If I reraise the MP opener and the guy behind me open 4bets then I’m in a real shitty spot. By flatting the original raise my call is pretty standard there given the over shove behind me. Granted, I didn’t know that he had KK but it really didn’t matter either.
I got into the first break doing OK with 16,000 chips but we’ll know by the end of this next hour where I’ll stand for the rest of the tournament. I pretty much blind down 12,000 before the end of 200/400/25 when an EP raiser makes it a very small 875 and I’m in the big blind with T8s. I call here and plan to play it carefully:
EP Raises to 875, Hero in the BB calls.
Flop: Q87ss (Pot 2600)
Hero Checks, EP Checks
Turn: 9s (Pot 2600)
Hero Checks, EP Bets 1100, Hero Calls
River: 7x (Pot 4800)
Hero Checks, EP Bets 3500, Hero thinks, and calls.
Opponent had been fairly aggressive and from listening to him he plays mid-high shorthanded cash online at FTP, although the way he brags he also plays HU. He has no idea what level I’m on because I never say anything anyway but I assume he thinks I’m a tight reg. His big river bet in comparison to his small turn bet was a bit fishy, especially when the 7 paired. When he checks the flop he either has Qx with no kicker or 99-JJ or maybe a set or missed overs, although I’m thinking he would bet the Qx and the sets to protect against all the draws all out there so mainly 99-JJ or overs. His small turn bet could very easily be a value bet now with 99-JJ but also with any AT, KT and AsJx, AsKx so that’s why I called. The river seemed to help me more than him and his big river bet was not indicative of TT-JJ value-towning me so really his range is 99 (maybe 88) or a missed draw. Given that I was getting over 2-1 on a call he very rarely needs to be bluffing there (6 combos of value max he only need 6 combos for a bluff and either the missed FD or missed straight draw there will be enough to make the call). Unfortunately for me he did have 99 and turned his hand and I missed my redraw. Now I’m down to 7000 chips.
Blinds go up to 300/600/50 and a couple new players sit down, one has a ginormous stack but is also rather older. He’s either good and solid aggro, an old nit, or a donk combination of the two. I pick up QJs in the BB and he makes a standard open of 2.5 bb and I’m in a bit of a quandry. If I shove I’m practically giving him 2-1 on a call so I don’t expect him to fold (although he might if he’s bad). He made it 1600, my shove would be for 6600 and he would have to call 5000 to win 9000; since he has the monster stack I don’t expect him to fold so I had to let it go. If I had 2-3 bb more I could feel more confident with a reshove there and have fold equity but with no fold equity I just let it go.
I did make one shortstack shove on the button for 10 bb, I had Q4s and stuck it in and took it down. 6 hands later I would get 77 UTG+1 with 12 bb and make the standard shove; I run into KK and that's good game/summer. That makes it 2 weeks without even a day 2, let alone a cash. Better luck next year I guess, if I decide to come.