I was looking forward to the £300 freezeout at the end of November. This event is, I suppose, the Blue Riband offering on the poker schedule at The International.
I rarely play live poker at the weekend. I’ve only played the £100 a couple of times ever, and I have literally never taken part in the £300 (either here or at The Gutshot).
The event would be my last chance to register a tournament win in London for 2009. It didn’t seem terribly likely, but one has to be optimistic !
I started out on a positive note, registering a win in the scrabble beforehand. Perhaps I could overcome similarly tough opposition in the main event ?
Generally speaking, I start out in a deep-stacked tournament by setting fire to part of my stack. I have never adjusted well to the long structures, and I just cannot seem to make the necessary changes to my game. I vowed to try to correct for this today.
As expected, the 63 runners were a Who’s Who of Gutshot/International players. Faces everywhere.
My table was no exception. For example .... on my left, Stuart Prior (serial final tablist in the £100) and Mikey Tse. On my right, Prof Achillea, Martin Spearing and Phil Haddon.
For the first couple of orbits I was very careful about getting involved until I did try a little (and rather obvious) bluff last to act on the river on a Q-8-5-6-6, showing 3 diamonds. Phil Haddon found a call with Q5. Perhaps this was factor in the hand that played out shortly thereafter?
Still at 25/50, we see a 7-way limped pot with Andy having started off the limping. I have KhTh.
The flop give me some hope: J-9-6 with one heart. Andy bet 125 and finds 3 callers including me.
The turn is gin for me: Qh bringing me the nuts with the King-high flush draw. Andy bets 175. I have a range of options, but I must raise for value I think. I make it 625 and am pleased to find Phil Haddon and then Andy calling. There is now about 2,700 in the pot.
The river is a blank. Andy checks. I have the immortal nuts – can I get paid ? Clearly Phil and Andy have hands of some value. Again, there must be a variety of options here. I consider checking over to Phil but I opt to make a small lead bet. I revise down my initial thought of bet size and put in just 1,200. Perhaps it will look weak ?
Good news. Phil puts out a raise (also small) to 3,000. Clearly he is not trying to bluff me here. My first thought is that we may be chopping, but I do find it unlikely that Phil wouldn’t have raised with KT and no hearts on the turn. Surely he would not raise now with a set or 2 pair?
It seems definitely possible that he has T8, even though with this hand he might also flat call the river. Perhaps he doesn’t feel 1,200 is enough reward for his hand and believes I will call with a hand like 2 pair myself?
Andy folds (2 pair he says). It does seem unlikely that Phil will now call if I re-raise the river. I do my best to appear discomfited, and take a look at the stack situation. On the one hand I may need to almost min-raise to get him to call, when he must now believe he is losing. I could make it as little as 4,800 theoretically. I started the hand with about 11k so an all-in raise would be to about 10,000 – about a pot sized raise in fact.
It is well known that I like the river raise or check-raise bluff. The 3-bet-all-in-river-bluff is the most grown up bet in this family of high octane plays. I must get some credit for a possible audacious bluff ?
If I do shove, I am of course expecting either a sigh-fold or a snap call for the chop. I am really not expecting Phil to call almost all-in with less than KT. There again, if he’s calling at all maybe he has to call the shove and maybe it is easier to call the shove?
On the whole I do think I under-bet my monsters, so I go for it.
When he doesn’t snap, I’m praying for him to find the hero inside! He mutters some version of the “this is sick” psalm and I think he uttered the classic “I think you’ve got it but I can’t fold” and with that, he makes the call with T8 and is shown the bad news.
Up to 22k and presumably the chiplead ! Phil still had a couple of thousand left. I think this was a factor in his decision. That is still 40 big blinds in this comp, and in fact Phil doubled up with a T8 straight a short while later. I remember thinking that it was still quite likely he would outlast me !
I made another nice step forward towards the end of the same level. Having made it 150 from late position, I get a call from Mike Tse and one other. Mike leads for 200 from the blinds when the flop comes Ts9h3s. I have As6s and I opt for the raise to 800, which Mike flats.
I ask him “do you have a flush draw?” No answer as per usual. The turn is the Js. The nuts for me. Mike checks. How much to bet ? I decide again on a smallish bet and decide on 1,400. I pick up 2x reds (500 each) and 4x 100 chips. I say “fourteen” and throw in the2 reds and 4 greys.
Now, the greys are 1,000 each so I have actually put in 5,000 chips! There is some confusion and some amusement at the table. Some kind of moody from me ? Some kind of Freudian slip ?
Someone suggested that I may have been made to put in fourteen thousand but I think the decision was pretty commonsense and I colour down the bet. Mike calls.
I’m not too sure what to put him on, honestly. A smaller flush ? KT with the King of spades ? KQ with one or more spades ?
My ideal river is a spade I guess. The Jack of hearts comes down. Hmm. I am not too delighted about this but, really, can he have a house ? Can he have a set on the flop and bet/call like that ?
Unlikely surely. How about TJ, J9 ? Not impossible but would he check the river ? Obviously I don’t want to get check-raise bluffed but once again I am aware that I need to get enough value for my big hand and that my image can help me get paid.
I choose an amount that I hope will dissuade Mikey from a bluff raise. I go for 4,000 into about a 4,900 pot. Mikey obviously had a hand as he found a call after a modest dwell, and I was good.
On about 26,500 chips I was feeling in great shape, obviously. I was very aware of my history of blowing up big stacks and I even took a couple of fairly long breaks from the table to enforce some discipline.
I thought I might really be running good when I picked up Kings on the button. Unfortunately, my standard raise took down the blinds and one limper.
Likewise, just a couple of hands later I find Aces and raise in early-mid position. Robin on my immediate left seemed to have been playing quite solid values and he appeared to think very carefully before make a near minimum raise from 600 to 1,200.
I thought I may be in luck. Ordinarily I might think his raise indicated Aces. This seemed unlikely here ! We seemed too deep for me to just flat but my 2,500 re-raise unfortunately scared him away. He later told me he only had QJ, so I suppose this wasn’t that tight of a fold !
Andy Achillea had been moved from our table and after a period playing 8 and 7 handed, we received a couple of new players. Briony Stone was moved into Andy’s seat on my right.
In her first hand she was the SB to my BB. I thought I may be getting a walk, until Briony bumps the bet to 700 (100/200). I have the rather appealing-looking JhTh. I think (why ?) that Briony may not have a monster so I decide a raise to clarify the situation is in order.
I don’t want to commit myself so I am about to make a smallish raise but something makes me say “2,000 more”.
This is met with an insta-ship for a further 5,200. I guess I found out. I go to fold when something else says to me “getting 2:1 ...” and I’m taking into account that Briony may well realise that my initial raise can be very light. Can’t she re-shove with 8s and 9s and AK, AQ ?
I hear myself say “call”. Briony has Aces, obviously. Is this the beginning of the downward spiral ?
Still, it wasn’t an easy hold for the Aces – two hearts on the flop and a Jack on the river gave me 14 outs on the river. None came, though, and the very next hand I bluffed 2,000 into the river only to find Briony insta-calling with 99 on the Queen high board. The river did complete a straight, but unfortunately it was the 5-7 straight rather than the 5-6 that I held. Still, it was promising to realise I could have value bet a made straight and been paid.
I still was running OK. The main problem was getting paid rather than getting a hand. I was hitting sets for fun, and straights as well although the next straight I made came with a flush on board – Martin Spearing made the flush on the turn exactly when I made the nut straight. I called his check-raise and when the river paired, I was able to see the bad-news-showdown without facing another bet. Could I have barrelled the river and represented ? Maybe.
I continue to preserve my chips relatively well, in my opinion, whilst at the same time playing pretty aggressively. It is important to play within one’s own style, I think.
However, with about 40 players left we’re in the last hand of level 6 (200/400/50), when this happens ...
JoeJoe “Goldenboy” Whittaker opens for 1,025 in early-mid. Martin Spearing is super-short on the button and is now all-in for 1,050. I am the big blind with 9s4s facing 650 to call into a pot of 1,050x2+200+400+9x50=3,150, so I am receiving nearly 5-1 on the call.
I cannot resist the call. OK ...
Flop – good news, bad news. J-9-4 all diamonds. I flop bottom two pair. This is probably winning right now. Of course, our Golden Boy may have flopped anything up to and including the nuts.
I opt to check to see what happens first. I have about 21k at this point and JoeJoe has me covered by several thousand.
He bets 2,025. Into a dry side pot this obviously announces that he has some values. The logic for my next action is one of those part-baked ideas. I wanted to “explain” to JoeJoe that I have flopped a big hand and that he should fold. I decide that a min raise will achieve this, even though realistically he cannot fold !
I duly make it 4,050 and now the rest falls into place. “How much do you have” etc. And then “alright, I’m all in”.
At this point I am essentially certain that he has one pair and one diamond. I should also explain that pre-flop I verbalised the fact that I was making a pure odds call. This means my opponent knows that his one pair/one diamond hand is either the best hand or the best draw. He has excellent information on the scenario.
The only hand he really fears from me is something like 8d3d and even then he knows he is almost certain to have a high diamond draw. There is essentially zero chance I have a made flush higher than a Queen.
OK ... If I fold I leave 40bb, about to become 25bb or so. Not a disaster. However, if I win I will have > 42k chips – up there with the leaders. I am very sure I am ahead now but I am also pretty sure I am about a 50/50 shot.
I think that to do well in these tournies I probably need to alter my style to incorporate a much higher value on my tournament life. In the moment, I made a deliberate decision that I wanted to play to win. Now I suspect a majority may argue that “playing to win” means fold here.
However, not wishing to give Ostrich more ammo to call me The Laydown King, I go for the call.
JoeJoe, as advertised, has QdJh. Martin in fact has a gutshot and a diamond draw with KcTd. The turn brings a Queen – making Martin the current nuts.
I need one of the remaining 4s or 9s. No joy and I am left to rue my pre-flop call. I don’t think I can ever get away on the flop although others maybe can ?
About the only comfort I can take is that my two chip donatees (JoeJoe and Briony) both final tabled as chipleader and eventual winner respectively !
2010 targets ... win a tournament at The International.
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