Another tourney, another story to tell ...

Played the Deepstack event at the ANZPT Melbourne & it was my usual tale of woe. Got off to a decent start at a very passive table, chipping up early by making use of position & the passivity of the other players. If folded or limped to me in late position, it was almost an invitation to raise, with almost no 3-bets pre-flop. Of course post-flop, it was invariably checked to the pre-flop raiser, so I simply put in the c-bet & took down the pot a vast majority of the time. If I was called on the flop, I either had to make a hand, or simply give up on the pot, but this happened rarely. Of course this lack of 3-betting was the beginning of the end for me ... I made my standard opening raise of 550 (levels 100/200/25), only to be re-raised to 1650 by the player two to my left. This was then called by the button before it got back to me! I re-raised to 5000 (I started the hand with about 13k) & noticed that the lady who re-raised me had around 6k total. She decided to shove after some thought & the other player got out of the way ... and my AA was up against AKs. Of course there was a king on the flop & a king on the river ... so a decent chunk of my stack went elsewhere.
I managed to lose a few more chips (some raises that met resistance, as well as an ill-timed flop check-raise) before finally getting my last 3500 in with 88 against KJo & lost the slightly more even coinflip ... and the walk of shame.
This put my live tournament streak at something like 0/18 for tournaments after my cash in the Thursday tournament around two months ago ... and as usual I got my money in good the vast majority of the time! Tournaments are so much fun!
When, oh when, will I run good???

ANZPT 8 Game

In short, I simply didn't make hands!
I think during the whole tournament I managed to win one showdown (a 2-7 hand where I was all-in against 2 others) & split one pot (heads-up in Stud 8 where my opponent was all-in on 6th & the hand was already a chop).
I managed to stay afloat by picking up blinds & antes from time to time, however these hands rarely made it to the big bet rounds, so there was a limit to my gains.
While this was happening, I also managed to get involved in hands (marginal at best, but I simply did not have any big hands other than the Stud 8 hand that was chopped) where I simply missed draws & occasionally managed to make second best hands.
Of course in all of this, I still managed to outlast three others on the table (one cooler hand, one guy who was very active and seemingly looking to give his chips away who ran into a PLO beat & one other player who appeared to have a run similar to mine and just didn't make hands and kept missing draws) & finished around 30th out of the 40 starters.
The event itself turned into a triumph for the 'old guard', with the event being won by Leo Boxell ahead of David Gorr & Graeme Putt.

Cash game run good

I have finally turned one of those corners that you always want to turn ... the run good one! The last few cash sessions I have played at Crown have seen most of my 80-20s hold up & I've even managed to win my fair share of my races. I've also played well & won a decent number of other pots to walk away with more than I started with on my last few visits. Maybe its because I've been playing a bit of online poker lately (largely inspired by a bonus offered from Full Tilt Poker), perhaps its the more frequent forum posting & watching of videos at Deuces Cracked, or maybe its just that time when the stars align and you actually run at or slightly above expectation.
Tournaments of course have continued to be standard fare, with Thursday's tournament coming to an early conclusion in a hand where I raised there was a limper (at 50/100 blinds with a 3k starting stack) before I raised to 350 in middle position. The lady to my immediate left who had played very few hands then re-raised to 700 before the big stack to her left called (he had doubled up on the second hand when he hit a gutshot after calling a small flop bet, only to have the guy with the overpair move all-in & he had around 7000 to start the hand). It folded back around to me & I moved all-in for another 2400 ... and the lady to my left immediately moved all-in as well (1700 more, so I had her covered by 700)! The big stack then thought it & eventually called. We turned over our hands & I was rather happy to see my KK up against QQ (lady) & AJo (big stack). As it turns out I was well in front, with the equities being 58% (KK) v 17% (QQ) v 25% (AJ). Of course that meant nothing as there was an ace in the window & I headed to the cash tables. Of course I think the overcall with AJo is horrible, as it is in awful shape against the shoving ranges of both myself & the lady who had both been playing super-snug. Assuming a range of TT+ & AQ+ (which is probably a bit generous), the AJ has only 16% equity. If it changed to QQ+ & AK (more realistic for myself), AJ slides to 14%. Of course it means little when your opponent gets there & you have to do the walk of shame ...
The ANZPT Melbourne schedule & structures have now been released & its good to see another 8 game event in the schedule, along with the regular dose of NLHE events. Bring on October!