Sunday was the Riverchasers event #5, HORSE. My HORSE game is pretty decent when judged against the population at large. Against other poker fanatics, not so much.
I was doing quite well for a while, having taken a juicy Razz pot from bayne when he kept betting his 96 into my 84.
My masterful limp/raise apparently had the desired confusing effect on Al. I had a very strong starting hand, but there were a lot of little cards showing. The limp/re-raise was in the back of my mind right from the start, thinking it would do better to thin the herd than a simple completion. Al's completion and my raise had the desired effect. I got somewhat lucky that 4th street was kind to me and not so kind to Al and NightRanger. With four cards to a 6-high, I bet, they folded, and my limp/raise master plan looked brilliant -- at least to me. Al's comment leads me to believe he was somewhat less impressed with this tricky move.
I stupidly rode a very promising but ultimately unsatisfying hand to a near 2000 chip loss in Stud Hi. I knew it was stupid when I was doing it, but I just couldn't help myself. Three cards to a royal on the deal. 4th street brings me four cards to Broadway. Then I pair my king. It just looked so darn pretty. I knew from the betting that I was behind -- probably way behind -- but I couldn't let go. I really hate when that happens.
By now the limits had moved up to 300/600. With a stack of only 3k, any move at all can quickly become an effective all-in.
I made a bit of a comeback at Omaha when my pocket K's pulled through for me. A few hands later I gave it all back when my pocket K's didn't connect and I had the good sense to fold to a board that was screaming straight. I dropped another 2400 to Al at Razz when my very promising 764A couldn't pick up a fifth card. I got most of it back from him a few hands later, still at Razz when Al paired and was forced to fold to my displayed 832.
My big undoing was again at Razz. With me showing 68 and NightRanger showing 8Q, he somewhat inexplicably called my bet. Even with two good cards down, I think most players are going to lay it down here, especially when the other guy raised the flop. He took a chance and got very lucky, all of 5th, 6th and 7th streets giving him great cards. I was down to the felt. NightRanger finished the job a few hands later when his rivered 7642A beat my 76432.
I took 12th and at least picked up a few points, moving to 57th on the BBT leaderboard.
In far more exciting news, at least for me, I won my way into next Sunday's $500k at Full Tilt, besting 59 other runners to win the whole thing and take one of two available tickets.
This was a rather odd tournament for me. I was card dead for a great deal of the time and just sat and watched as play went on around me. I took down enough small pots to keep afloat. A surprising number of them were just blatant steals.
Maybe I've been playing blogger tournaments too often, but I was rather surprised by the extremely high attrition rate in this tourney. We'd lost half the field 40 minutes in and a full two-thirds of the field by the first break. And this was NOT a turbo. Okay, so it was only an $8 tournament, but I still expected somewhat better play.
After a few quick table changes at the beginning, I got to observe a few players for an extended period. One of the big weaknesses in my game is not closely following the action when I'm not involved in the hand and not developing much in the way of player profiles. Some of that is likely an offshoot of a couple years of four-tabling limit and depending on PokerTracker and PA Hud to do the dirty work for me. But those stats are not all that useful in tournament poker. For whatever reason, characteristics of some of the players became quite obvious to me last night and I was able to use these to my great advantage later in the game.
For instance, there was one guy who had clearly spent way too much time playing freerolls and very cheap tournaments with minimal payouts. Whenever he'd get a big hand he'd push all-in. Blinds at 25/50 and from UTG he pushes all-in for 1800. I was sure he had aces or kings. The first time he did this everyone folded. I bit my tongue against the urge to congratulate him on the huge pot he'd just scooped. He did the same thing later on and one even bigger idiot actually called him with QQ. Mr. I'm-all-in turned over KK and scooped a very nice pot. I don't know, maybe he isn't such an idiot after all. At least I knew to stay away from him if he pushed in a situation where it made little sense.
There was another guy who, at any sign of weakness, would pounce. I lost a few small pots to him early, but more than made up for it later, re-stealing two or three very large pots, and eventually using his extreme aggressiveness to get him pot committed on a hand where I knew I was way ahead. That hand eliminated him and got me my ticket.
Overall, this tournament was a bit strange. I was up a bit early, then the cards dried up and my stack kept moving in the wrong direction. Due to the incredibly high attrition rate I was able to simply sit there and wait for cards while I moved closer to the payout spots due to eliminations.
Eventually, with my stack at 800 and blinds at 80/160, I was forced to make a move. I doubled up with KQ vs K7, and doubled again the very next hand when the flop brought me a set of jacks.
From there I just kind of caught fire. I picked up a nice pot with a set of tens. Stole a few pots to keep my stack stable. Then I doubled against one of the big stacks when he had the misfortune to catch top pair and didn't want to believe I had him beat, despite having raised with my pocket kings before the flop. I eliminated the same guy a while later when he couldn't let go of second pair against my top pair.
Within what seemed like a rather short period of time I went from 800 to over 13,000; from life support to being clearly in contention for the prize. It was about this time that we collapsed to the final table. There were two shorties and everyone else packed in pretty close together.
The lead changed hands a number of times, with me holding it for a brief while. We eventually broke the "bubble". This tourney had a kind of odd payout structure. The top two got $216 tickets to Sunday's $500k. The next three spots paid out something like $14, $12, and $9.
We got down to three when someone stupidly took KTo up against AA. I did a lot of watching as all these eliminations took place. Two of us had stacks of about $20k with the third guy at $46k.
I took my first big pot from the aggressive guy I mentioned before. I turned a pair of kings and he just wouldn't stop making moves on the pot. My kings took down a $20k pot and I moved in to the lead by $10k.
From there things just kind of kept clicking. I was either catching the cards or applying pressure with my big stack.
I clearly got lucky in a few places as far as getting good cards when I desperately needed them. But I was also very patient, waiting for my spots to come along. All in all, one of my better performances. Certainly my best in a couple weeks.
I did find out that as far as FT's monthly leaderboard competition, actual finish position in these multi-ticket satellites really does matter. If you're trying to win something via that promotion you'll probably want to play these out rather than just push all-in like most people do once the ticket bubble has burst. You quite likely can be assured of 2nd by simply staying out of the fray until there's just one other left.
Tonight is the final MATH for the BBT. I need to move up a few more spots to make the freeroll, so I'm hoping to do well. See you there.
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