PSOP £200 HORSE

I was pleased to see the HORSE event on the festival calendar once more. In fact I hope it will be a fixture for all future festivals. I would encourage everyone to have a go at it. I quite literally only learned the rules of the other games a few days before I competed in the first HORSE event, and it’s not hard to learn them.

Of course, it may be hard to learn to play them well but the great thing about a tournament is that you can’t come to too much harm whilst you’re still making big mistakes !

The other thing about HORSE that I imagine puts people off initially is that they are LIMIT games. It’s true that the first few rounds are quite slow going but, in reality, this is often the case in a deep stack NLH event, unless there is an AA vs KK trainwreck.

Once the blinds and antes kick up a bit, the pots can quickly escalate and the stacks can swing around quite violently.

Actually, I like the fact that in a limit tournament (ironically) you can more easily make a dramatic recovery from a short stack. Of course you have to find a hand that you want to commit with but, when you do, then you often will get paid off in full by multiple opponents so a multi-up is always just around the corner.

Online the other day I was down to 1.5 big bets and was last of the remaining 29 runners. A few hands later I was the chip leader and I felt a bit aggrieved in the end not to win the thing !

The HORSE event at the PSOP was the last competition of the 2-week extravaganza and, de facto, my last shot at a trophy. A field of only 29 runners meant that there were less bodies to get past although, not surprisingly, there were some specialists in attendance including several faces who only really come the The International when the HORSE is on.

In the end my campaign fizzled out in 13th spot. It was a rollercoaster; very early on I chipped up nicely, then lost ¾ of my stack in a series of situations where I was deep in hands and then had to give up. Frustatingly, I would have got there in some of those.

However, my 3k stack was soon up to 16k again as I did hit some hands. This was a decent stack but, again, not enough to sustain more than one or two serious hits.

I was crippled in a Razz hand where on 6th street I had a made 8 and I could tell my opponent had paired one of his low cards in the hole. Unfortunately he felt compelled to chase, and hit a 6 low on 7th street. I called his last bet at the end; I still do not have the stomach for folding to 1 bet into a 12 bet pot on the end even though I know the chances are that he is not bluffing.

I decided to get all my chips in on 3rd street in the next hand. You are never that far behind at this stage in Razz. JoeJoe was slightly ahead to begin with but had no low at all on 6th. Of course he got there on the last card and I was out. He went on to win, which is some consolation to me I guess !

I think I perhaps need to alter my strategy for a medium stack in these tournaments when I have a good hand. Perhaps play more passively until later in the deal to protect my stack ? I need to have a think about it before the next event.

The next relevant event, in fact, may be along quite soon as I am planning to play the £500 8-game at the EPT (October 6th). I am not sure what kind of player will participate in this. There is a £2,000 8-game for the big boys. Will the same players get involved for just £500 ? If not, who will ?

I suppose that a majority of the field will be mixed game experts. I will be dramatically outgunned for experience and technical knowledge in that case and I guess that it’s harder for luck to play a decisive role than in NLH (although 8-game does include NLH and PLO; maybe I need to explode the H-bombs in those rounds ?).

Still, as the EPT itself out of reach buy-in wise, I am happy with my choice of event and you never know what may happen. I know I will enjoy the event no matter what happens.