What a Thursday. Started writing about a couple of HORSE tips, ended up with a complete gameplan for the $4K Guaranteed. Then used it, almost verbatim, to take 2nd place last night, losing to Huckleberry Seed heads up. Simultaneously, played in the Riverchasers blogger tourney, and took it down too. That means for the three blogger tourneys this week, I finished 2nd, 7th, and 1st.
4K Guaranteed
Chipped up early thanks to some board-love. Free flop 48s in Holdem, flush on the turn holds up. In Omaha, the nut flush held up for a scoop, even on a paired board.
Beautiful hand in 5 cards in Stud high, and it held up without needing the straight flush redraw. This would be the common theme for the night, making big hands and having them hold up.
Now I've got me 3000 chips to play with, and I can afford to call some hands on 3rd and 4th street, and make some looser raises in Holdem and Omaha. In a limit tournament, the big stack is very strong, and at the same time much less volatile than in no-limit. Having a 3000 at a table of 1500's is as valuable as having 9000 at the same table in no limit.
I used this stack over the next hour to increase my lead, winning several pots in Holdem, Omaha and Razz, before finding two monsters late in the second hour.
Straight and a low, beautiful. As I mentioned yesterday, one hand like this can turn 3000 into 8000, or in this case 9500 into 22000. I will almost always call a complete with a hand like 457, maybe even a raise if it's not going to 4 bets each street. A low card on 4th can lead to serious leverage, and a 6 on 4th will take us all the way to the river. A high card and we can dump it.
The next hand I completed on 3rd with my 3-card straight flush draw, and the bring in defended with his 3 suited cards also. I bet 4th having paired my J, and this is where he NEEDS to dump his hand. Instead, he chases one more, and catches a trouble 2, and tries to push. Three things led me to push back and take this one down:
- His playing style -- loose aggressive, way too chasey, almost ready to mark him as a "purple"
- He was the bring-in -- players will forget that were forced in, and bet like they have a hand. One of my favorite moves is to raise any good hand when the bring-in happens to pair 4th and bets out.
- At least one 2 was gone already from 3rd street, meaning he would have to have found the case 2. Again, seemed unlikely.
At the same time, you can see that I was all in, and precariously close to gone. Also, notice the new color for billyho17 starting with the next hand.
All in but freerolling. GOLDEN! And now, for the final table, complete with sexy backlighting...
The next 20 minutes were fast and furious. I was very aggressive, and I think the Huck Seed intimidation factor helped immensely, because 5 of the other 6 were playing scared. Huck, who had been all in several times, used a glorious run of cards to bust most of the remaining people, while I managed to sneak in and take a couple of pots too. So from 25K each coming into final table, now it was down to a heads up razz battle.
Wait, didn't this guy win a Razz WSOP Event? Oh yeah, and also the WSOP Main Event? Storybook ending for me set up perfectly.
Except not today. I lost the hand above when he hit 6th and bet, forcing me to fold after I paired. Went out in Stud, reraising a wired middle pair after Huck raised an A to represent split aces, only to actually have split aces. It was quite the display by Huck Seed over the final two tables. He was on life support most of the time, but had composure to pick good spots and the luck to win his all-ins.
Riverchasers
Thought it would be a short night, after losing half my stack early, flopping a straight but losing to a flopped 3-high flush. Retained my composure, and after getting a few chips back playing every other hand for 20 minutes, I was dealt AA UTG.
Would like to get all my chips in here, if I limp do I think someone will raise me? Astin....Bayne....Hoy....I'm betting "Yes."
Turns out, raised by Astin, min-reraised by Bayne to 560. I just called the reraise. At this point, I'm ready to go to the rail if my AA doesn't hold up 3-handed, and I need to maximize my profits. I let him see the flop hoping he would like it, because no flop will get me to fold AA here. My AA holds up over TT (after Astin folded), and I'm back in business.
On a side note, notice Astin and I both have about half of our original stacks 40 minutes into the tourney (Astin had 1025 after this hand), yet we went out 3rd and 1st. I think Astin had 80K of the 129K total chips at one point at the final table. Double-stacked tourneys are SLOW, be patient and pick the best spots.
From then on, it was just firing on all cylinders. Most of my moves just worked. 2-7 was 3/3 on the night. And when my moves got called, I hit the board anyways, spiking 2 pair on the river no less than 3 times.
Another huge turning point came defending my BB from Hoy's mandatory open-raise from the SB. I'd called a couple of times already, but had laid down post flop. So when I found myself calling yet another Hoy raise with QJ and catching a T96 flop, I felt like I could invest in this pot and either:
- Catch my straight and (hopefully) double up, or
- Float and take the pot away on the turn anyways
Option #2 was put into motion after the turn brick, and when it worked I was up to 3rd in chips.
Who knows, I could have hit one of my 8 (or up to 14) outs, or maybe was even bluffing the best hand. I am very happy with the bet here, because while obviously pot-committed, only betting 3200 looks MUCH stronger than a shove.
Final table went very well, flopping some beauties:
Once down to heads up I felt very confident because PossumDown let me dictate the play. I raised my button 50% of the time, depending on whether or not I wanted to see a flop. PossumDown folded way too often to my raises, and didn't punish my limps, meanwhile limping or folding on her button. When I got dealt AA and Possum folded preflop, I showed them to encourage the overly tight play to continue. "Good fold there." With a decent chip lead, I had one thing in mind. If I stay ahead, I only needed one hand to win it. So I folded to several all-in shoves on the river, finally getting home check-raising top pair and calling a re-shove from 88.
Exorcised my nemesis from last week, those dreaded 8's.
Well it's off Saturday afternoon to play some brick-and-mortar with BuddyDank at the pony place, then hopefully the Sunday HORSE after a token satellite. Man, I love running hot, even winning tokens with hands like 76s > 88, and T2, flop TT2, and someone limping with 22. I'm luckbox lucksack awesome.
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