Saturday, January 19, 2008

$5K HU and $2K 6-max

So I bubbled both of these. I played pretty well though, there were some sweet hands. In the first round of the HU I played Doug Lee. As far as I know he's basically a terrible spewbox, but I didn't play very well against him and didn't make many hands. Fortunately I luckboxed some coinflips to scrape by after losing the first game in the best of 3. In the next round I played Anna Wroblewski. I thought she was spewy aggro too but she was actually kind of solid but on the passive side. Anyways in this match I stopped being a pussy like I was against Lee and started trusting my hand reading to make some good river calls.

Hand 1: She limps and I check T3o in the BB. Flop J73 chk/chk. Turn Kc starting a possible flush draw. I check/call her bet. River K, I check, she bets and I figure enough draws and stuff missed that I should call and beat her 45.

Hand 2: She limps I check 96o. Flop 644, both check. Turn 5, I bet 3/4 pot she calls. River 2, I check and she bets some normal amount. I don't think she'd call the turn with just a 3, but probably would with a 7 which she'd be likely to bluff with here, so I call and win again.

I ran pretty good against Anna and made some hands at key times to win the match 2-0. In the third round I played timex though and he kicked my ass. I got behind in both, then won key races to get the lead, then lost really key races to lose. Fortunately we had traded a lot of % so I still got some money out of this tournament.

Today was the $2K 6-max which had a really great structure. I was doing really well for a while, and played some pretty interesting hands, unfortunately I busted 29th when 24 paid in the end though.

Hand 1: There's an aggressive player on my left who's 3-bet light already preflop against other players but not me. I can tell from the way he's played other hands though that he really knows what he's doing, he's not just some crazy spewtard. At 75/150 I open A6s UTG 5-handed to 450 with about 12K. I've been semi-active and as Im putting the chips for my raise in the pot I'm thinking this guy is going to 3-bet me soon, possibly this hand in fact. He quickly makes it 1350 and it folds back to me. It's a lot easier to trust your read and make a biggish move in a situation like this when you can predict his move, so I make it a goofy 3350 representing a monster but leaving room to fold to a push and he folds.

Hand 2: I've since 4-bet the same guy again, this time with AK, and had him fold again, and also been raising a ton of pots since I keep picking up pretty good hands and opening. It folds to me in the SB, I now have 15K and the BB covers, and I raise to 450 with A4ss. BB calls and we see a flop of 663 2 spades. I bet 600 and he makes it 1600. I don't really believe him because he's some middle aged guy and they would almost always slowplay trips here to trap the young overaggressive kid, but we're deep enough that I don't really want to pop him back since if he does happen to have a big hand I would pot-commit myself in a bad spot. Also my ace-hi can easily be the best hand if he's bluffing so I don't necessarily need to bluff him back. The turn is an offsuit 8, I check and call 2500, still hoping to make my hand but also thinking my ace may well be the best hand. The river is another 6, I check and he bets 3500. At this point he's representing basically nothing. It's so unlikely he has quads (he was already unlikely to have a 6 because he didn't slowplay, and now with 3 of them on the board and his small bets it's almost certain he doesn't), and he wouldn't play a 3 or 8 this way, he'd check at least one of the turn and river probably. So A-hi basically looks like the nuts to me here, pretty sure he has to be bluffing, so I call and he taps the table and says nice call. Then turns over his ATo. Damn.

Hand 3: So I'm down to around 7K, then get down to 4K. Still 75/150, CO, button and SB all limp. I check Q3o in the BB. Flop QT3 2 clubs. I lead 450 and the CO calls. Turn K, I bet 1K and he calls. River T, counterfeiting my hand. I check with 2850 left and he quickly put me all-in. I'm pretty frustrated, but then start thinking about what could he possibly have. I dont think he'd bet a king this big. If he was ahead on the turn he would have raised. How can he have a ten? JT maybe makes sense. So does busted clubs though. Eventually I stick it in, and he taps the table (he didn't accidentally have a better hand this time). Nice.


Hand 4: I win a race with KQ vs A8 aipf to get some chips, then pick up KK and AA and bust players on consecutive hands to get to 55K at 200/400 a50, around a twice average stack. Then I donk a bunch off though at 300/600 a50. It folds to the HJ who is pretty new table. As far as I can tell he just plays every pot. I can't recall a time in the 3 or so orbits he's been here that it folded to him and he didn't raise. He makes it 1700, and I find 66 in the CO and decide to just reraise to 5100 and take my chances since it seems like he's so ridiculously out of line. Instead he moves all-in for 20K more and I'm getting too good a price to fold against a guy who as far as I know could just be a psycho. He has JJ though and I lose half my pretty stack. I really hate playing for so many chips prelop with 66 I would never normally do this, but as far as I could tell he was raising practically any 2 cards.

From there less interesting stuff happened. I got into shortstack ninja mode and did my thang. Eventually with 30 left, 24 getting paid, Joe Sebok limped UTG at 800/1600 a200, CO limped, and the button raised to 8500. He was very aggressive so I figured he could easily be raising pretty light. I found 99 in the SB and shoved my 29K stack, and he called with J9s. Door card J, fun way to spend a day. Tomorrow is my last day here in Australia. There's a $1k event. I'll see how many players it gets, decent chance I'll play I suppose but I may just pass on it and make the most of my last day here instead. I did get around to going to watch some Australian Open tennis a few days ago which was really fun. We didn't get to see any big names, but watched some pretty competitive matches and I got a nice sun burn. OK bed time for me I guess. Later,

Mike

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