I thought I might get a chance to report on a real "chip and a chair" story. Alas it became more on an "ashes to ashes" tale.
I was playing the "Nightly Hundred Grand" on pokerstars: $10+1 to enter. Twenty thousand runners (!). $20k first prize (pretty impressive for $11 investment). Top 3,000 places pay.
I think in this type of event, super-tight hand selection is the way to go and then you have to be prepared to go all the way with your strong hands.
So it was that I hadn't been involved in many hands, when I picked up KK in UTG+2. The player to my right limped, and I raised to 800 (blinds 100/200). Flop came out all low. He checked, and I bet 1,200. He raised all-in and I called for only 565 more.
He showed AQ with no flush draw. I was a bit surprised, but looking forward to raking in the pot when, of course, an Ace fell on the river and left me with only 220 chips. Not only that, but the blinds were up this hand to 300/600 with a 25 ante !
But, all was not lost: I had ATo in that very next hand - good enough to throw it in with. 5 people saw a cheap flop, which was 10-high. I quintupled up to 1,155.
On the next hand, I had QQ UTG but folded by mistake (oops) !!
Next hand: A2s on the big-blind. I got it all in vs TT and rivered the Ace myself this time (against that same player who cracked my Kings).
Next: AK vs AK (chop) and then AQ vs 22. From 195 chips I now had 5,596 !
I folded AJ on the big blind in the face of an all-in from mid-position and THEN I picked up AA. Before me there was a raise from a short stack and a re-raise all in from another short stack. I re-raised and us three saw the flop. The other hands were J9o and KTs. Board 56K. Still winning. Turn T (losing, but got outs). River Q - I finished in third place in the hand !
If my Aces had held up I'd have been back above average but instead, after that hit and with the blinds as they were, I soon pushed with A6 and lost to AJ to finish about 7,000th.
I guess in such a large field, even this amazing ride in the space of just 20 hands may not even be all that remarkable !
6 comments:
Lessons learned: 1) don't fold AJ to middle position ALL IN, in fact you are absolutely crushing his range 2) don't accidentally fold QQ
3) get lucky
Totally agree with you on 2)and 3) but have to disagree on 1). I always used to think AJ was a fine hand for this purpose but many many times of being up against AK or AQ have put me off. Now I take the view that I am likely facing a low/middle pair or AJ+. I am unlikely to be facing AT and below so there are hands that I'm racing with and hands that dominate me and hardly any hands that I really beat.
Of course in the actual tournament, I was delighted that I laid down AJ because almost immediately thereafter I picked up that AA with my powder dry.
The range of a good poker player pushing middle position all in for under 10BB (i assume the guy was short under 10BB?) is top 25% of all hands or more. If you use Poker Stove top 25% includes hands like A2 suited and K6 suited, fyi, AJ has 58% equity against this range, folding AJ there is like writing the guy a check :)
I hear what you're saying but wonder if that is more applicable in practice to a STT situation than these big-field MTTs. I'm giving more weight to survival. Maybe such an attitude is not the way to go on to cash big, however. At the moment, I feel I would like to score some cashes before adopting a go-for-the-win approach.
How do you use PokerStove to figure out which hands are in the top X%?
Oh, and yes, call AJ to a <10BB shove...are you a man or a mouse!?!
IF you to to preflop field on PokerStove, lower right conner has % field, fill it with whatever number you like and it comes up with the range
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