Cash is King

Having just cashed in the WSOP Event 54, I was more delighted to tick off a poker goal than I was disappointed in exiting when I might have hoped to go further.

I was pretty tired having played for 13 hours in the event the previous day, and then having hard almost no sleep overnight.

But I felt an urge to play real H-bomb poker and a $120 MTT at The Venetian seemed just the thing. The tourney had 7,500 chips at 25/50 starting blinds. But with 20minute clocks and an aggressive structure with anted from level 4, it soon switches from deep to steep.

I started out pretty wild with the super-deep chips at level 1, lots of moves at pots to see who’s who.

The first key pot arose at level 3 (100/200) when Swiss Miss in early position made it 600. I decided that 65s was plenty to call to bluff from the big blind. The flop 6-2-2 was no help to the raiser, and gave me a little something. I check-called 600 on the flop. This indicated to me that she probably wasn’t super strong.

The turn was an offsuit 9. My plan was to check-raise a weak continuation. She made a bigger bet than I expected (1,300) and I selected a 3,300 check-raise hoping this would be strong enough to take it down. However, this elicited a reluctant call. Only one move left now. She clearly has an overpair to the board so I have 2 outs.

The river is a 5, which changes nothing. I move in for about 4,500. I just cover her and it seems like this is the decisive factor as she folds Jacks.

I have a stack now, and this starts an amazing rush: next up I call a raise 3way in the SB with JJ and on the Ten high flop I get all the chips from the button who started with AT.

AQ on a Q44 flop is good for another pot. Not all the pots go my way, however, as I am a spectator post flop which comes 9-3-3. Eventually, all the chips go in on the flush-card river.

One player had 99 for top house. The other player had 33 for flopped quads !

However, I am back in action very soon. I have been opening a lot of pots now that antes are in play but I decide to limp J9cc under-the-gun hoping to get a free flop with a little speech play.

Now a player who seems to specialise in min-bets raises to 2,100 which offers me 7/3 odds to call.

Flop is J9x. I check and the villain makes it very easy for me by shoving for 8k. I snap-call and he’s drawing thin with QQ. Next, my A5 takes out a short-stack 99 with a straight. Even the times I fold I would have hit. After raising with 66, I face a shove from a moderate stack which I am calling but before I can, the quad-3 player moves in and he has me approximately covered. I fold and we see AQ from the first shover vs AA for the over-shove. Door-card is a 6 ....

However, this is a short pause. I pick up KK in the small blind and face a raise. I re-raise and the raiser shoves. Call. Aces for the initial raiser ! Cooler.

Yes indeed ... Flop KKJ !

Next hand I am on the button. The cut-off pushes with AJs, I over-push with QQ. I am knocking players out so fast that we have to keep waiting for new fodder and the floor stations a supervisor at our table to direct incoming traffic. I have 50,000 chips at 300/60/50.

I fold KT in a pot vs AQ and 64. Board 9QJA7. See, I should play EVERY pot !

I make a raise now with A7-suited and my left hand opponent, short stacked, calls. Another player also calls but I do not notice.

The flop come KT9 and I decide to put the short stack to a decision and shove. He folds and I go to muck, but the other player calls with KJ and has a decent chunk (15k). Damn ! This is what happens when you don’t pay attention.

However, when you are running hot, help is always at hand. Running clubs see me flush out our unlucky villain. I am up to almost 70k chips before I barrel off 20k in two pots and I now realise that I need to calm down and concentrate on winning this thing.

About 70 of the 290 starters remain. With about 48k I still have a decent stack but the steepness of the structure really kicks in here and the field typically has 10-15bb with the leaders on 20-25 max, sometimes less. I play very aggressively, always as the initial raiser (i.e. shover).

We make the money but it is an extremely flat payout structure in the first 10places. It’s virtually money back for the first cash and even 8th place is only $500. Meanwhile, 1st place is > $8k.

As we reach the final table bubble, I have 253k with blinds of 10k/20k/antes of 4,000. I am above average in chips with this 12BB stack.

Here’s an interesting hand as we play the bubble. We are playing 5 handed and 6 handed and a player is all in at the other table. At our table, the shortest stack has 51k total and has 20k of it in play as the BB. The chipleader at our table on 320k makes it 45k from under the gun.

I think a shove here should buy the pot. I figure that the UTG player has to credit me with a hand especially as the BB has to call. My only hesitation is that the UTG player is apparently a real hero-caller. My plan works out even better as a player goes out on the other table mid-play. The BB now folds leaving himself just a couple of blinds – he realy wants to be on the FT (he already told us that before the hand).

The chipleader now starts to dwell. TBH I can’t see how he can even think of calling. Eventually he folds an Ace. This means I go to the final table with 316k which is roughly the same as the 2 other big stacks.

I get off to a bad start when I lose the first pot and on 170k after paying some blinds, I am getting quite short-stacked already as we are playing 30k/15k/5k. But I pick up KK on the button. UTG raises to 90k. I wonder whether to flat call given how short I am but I decide not to be greedy and push for my 170k to just take it headsup. The BB folds with some pain and then unbelievably the initial raiser also folds for less than a minimum raise !

This starts a rush, anyway. I take out the button who raise with AT into my KK Again then I take out a player with AT > A9 and another with AQ>A9.

With 5 left I have half the chips but still I only have 20BB as we are up to 40k/20k/5k.

When we come to 3-handed we have been playing for 8 hours and are very equal-stacked. We briefly discuss a deal but really none of us is interested. I am not too keen as I always want to play to win. The other experienced player has the same attitude as me and the third player is delighted to have some this far and is also willing to see what happens.

What we do agree is to flatten out the extremely steep payout structure so that the money is 7,150/5,100/4,000 instead of 8,500/5,000/2,750.

As it turns out, I go out 3rd. I made it into the chip lead with one of the stacks somewhat short. The short stack pushed and I called with K8. She was in trouble with K4 but 2 fours on board put all three stacks pretty equal.

I lost another clip and so was actually in a close 3rd place when I shoved from the BB with QT facing a standard raise from the SB. He called with K3 off and a King on the flop pretty much ended it.

So, a slightly disappointing 3rd place but overall to cash twice in Vegas in one day when I had not cashed in 4 previous trips was a pretty amazing run. To Janey and Peter: it was nice playing with you.