Sunday, July 4, 2010

LOOOONG day in tournaments for nothing ... and some bowling with the DC guys!

A long, long day in the 8-game tournament at Aria ... ultimately finishing with nothing. This 8-game tournament featured Badugi (rather than the usual 2-7 triple draw), along with NLHE, PLO & H.O.R.S.E. with the logic being that no-one needed to sit out in badugi, unlike 2-7. The field was small at 38, but with a 15k starting stack & 50 minute levels, it would be a long event. It took over 8 hours (well past midnight) to get down to two tables & with stacks reasonably deep, the pace slowed even more, with very few eliminations. At one point I was chip leader with 13 players left, having about 88k in chips when the average was 43k. Of course it was then when I managed to run poorly & find myself with strong second-best hands on multiple occasions. Unfortunately for me there were three big hands that I lost & I was out in 10th. The first was a razz hand where I had a 87 made, with a draw to a 75 & lost to my opponent's 75 (if I made my 75 I would have won the pot). I then lost a huge hand in O8, with AsKc8s8c & raised in late position, only to be called by the big blind, who was the other big stack at the table. The flop was KsTs2h & it wentcheck-bet-call. The turn brought the 4s & again check-bet-call. The river was a repeat 2 & my opponent checked to me again. My thinking was that there were a lot of hands that would check-call both the flop & turn that would also check-call the river (something like a weak flush with a missed low draw or a straight draw with a 2), so I bet again. My opponent then check-raised me! I was surprised, but decided to call, only for my opponent to turn over KKJ8 for top full house! I had (obviously mistakenly) thought that a hand like that (which makes sense for the check-call, check-call line) would probably lead the river, hoping to make an extra bet rather than risk missing a bet on the end. Of course I was wrong & I dropped a big chunk of my stack. Of course shortly afterwards I found myself in another big hand with the same opponent, this time with AAKJ. The flop was Q75 & we got the rest of the chips in on the flop & I was up against AJ73, which meant I was in decent shape, though there was a decent chance that the pot would be chopped (odds are 22-34 to scoop, with high hand being 65-34 in my favour, with the low being 0-63). Of course a repeat 7 came on the turn & I couldn't find the last A in the deck & was out in 10th place. What made it more disappointing was that this was the first time in over 6 hours that I had been all-in. The previous (and only) time I had been all-in in the tournament was in PLO when I was accused of slowrolling (though my opponent later apologised) when we got the money in on a Qc4c3h flop with my AcAdJd9c beating my opponent's 7654 when I made a flush on the turn (I thought for about 5-10 seconds after betting the flop & my oppoent raising to put me all-in before I called, which lead to the slowroll accusation). Of course with the top 5 being paid & my elimination coming just before 4am (the event started at 5pm), it was disappointing to have played well for over 10 hours, only to walk away with nothing.
The previous evening was the Deuces Cracked bowling night at the Gold Coast Casino. I played one game (scoring 117, which was poor for the lane I was in, but seemed like a decent score compared to other lanes ... a bit below what I would have liked, but its been a while since I've been bowling) before sitting down with Chuck Danielsson for an interview for my podcast. All-in-all a very enjoyable evening & I picked up a DC cap & duck while I was there. If there was any doubt as to whether I was part of a great community poker training site, the events at the WSOP have really confirmed that I made the right choice. Now I just need to find more time to improve my online game & make the most of the fantastic training videos Deuces Cracked have to offer.
Next on the agenda: UFC 116! Great card at the MGM!

No comments:

Post a Comment