Day 2 - PLO $200 + $15 Rebuy and Add on

After the disaster that happened on day 1 with my connection, I started off this day with a suprisingly cheery outlook. It couldn't get worse right?.... or so I thought. <READMORE>

Todays event is a PLO rebuy. I am (and probably always will be) a No-Limit Hold Em specialist but at the beginning of this year I started playing PLO. It started off with entering a PLO tourny one afternoon having never played the game or not having ANY idea about the rules of the game. It took me the first hour to realise that you could only use 2 of your 4 hole cards. I swear, I almost wrote paradise an email telling them their software was screwed as it kept awarding pots that I had won to other people. Amazingly despite this, I was still in after the first hour and after my "revelation" I went from strength to strength and ended up coming 2nd out of about 50 or so people. I still dont know how I did it. So, this lead me into the PLO cash games and thats where I started my geniune PLO education. The best way to describe PLO is "Fun but Fustrating!!!". I havent played that many PLO tournys (a few on stars, a few on dise) and although I'm not educated in PLO tourny strategy I have done OK. By OK, I mean I normally out last Seal (just kidding buddy).

What I have noticed in the PLO tournys that I have played is that I have much better results in freezeouts than I do in R & As. With tonights event being an R&A this isn't the greatest peice if information to discover about yourself to instill confidence. I wasn't sure if I should play in this event or not, as I couldn't commit myself to rebuying and adding on. If it was a NLHE/PLHE/LHE event then I wouldn't mind (as much) forking out for the rebuys and add ons as I know that I have had reasonable enough success in the past to warrant the extra financial commitment to the event. In a type of tourny that I have had no success in, its hard to convince myself to go "the whole hog".

I decided that I would try and win some additional W$ via sats to account for at least one rebuy and hopefully an add on and make the final decision right before the event.

The sats didn't go to plan. In fact they didn't even resemble the plan! In my first one - a $10 PLO R&A turbo I had the most incredibly horrendous table I've ever experienced. From start to finish in the rebuy period every single hand was all in before the turn (the majority was pre flop 4/5 way!). I had no choice but to gamble with them. Unfortunately, I didn't make a good gambler and ended up Rebuying several times to no avail and ended up going out shortly after the rebuy period had ended. In my second attempt at the same type of tourn, I was placed at a much more reasonable table and I was in much better shape after the rebuy period and with 29 left with 22 getting a seat, I made a mistake that killed me. It was folded around to me in the SB and the guy in the BB had been very tight, also and more importantly, he was short. Not short enough that he would be forced to call no matter what he had, but short enough to make him think that he could probably fold his way to the seat. I had a reasonable hand but not a hand I would normally raise with. I decided, in my infinite wisdom, that there was no way he would call unless he had a monster. I put him pretty he much all in and he insta-called with QQ rag rag rainbow. I lost the hand and also any chance I had of qualifying via this sat.

Now it was decision time. I had to choose whether to play in the event knowing that I wont rebuy and probably wont add on (a decision I would make after the first hour if I played). I knew the massive disadvantage I would putting myself in if I played under these conditions. I knew that with this disadvantage + my lack of PLO tourny tactics etc it was a huge gamble for me to play. I would have to get lucky. By "lucky" I dont mean card lucky (although that always helps), I mean I would have to get lucky first of all in what type of table I was seated at. I needed to be seated at a table with people similar to me, ie, ones who weren't willing to rebuy. This would be highly unlikely and at best I could probably hope to get half a table who wouldn't rebuy. I also needed to get lucky to be seated on a tight table. One that I could see alot of flops cheap in the first hour.

I had sat and thought through all of this and worked out that I was counting on a lot of factors beyond my control to have a reasonable shot at cashing. I'm not normally one for using terms such as -/+EV but if there was a phrase to describe entering this tourn, it was "-EV". It would be a bad bet, an idiotic move, a sucker play and finally downright stupid of me to play in this event bearing in mind everything I had sat down and carefully considered....

So anyway, the first hand I get dealt in the event was AK56rainbow.

Thats right ladies and gentlemen, even though I had gone through and worked out all of the above, I still played in the damn event!!!

And guess what, all of the things I hoped would happen not only didn't happen, the exact opposite happened. I got stuck at a table that was the EXACT opposite of what would've been perfect for me. I was at a table where not only did most of them rebuy they also were all very aggressive with it. I couldn't see any cheap flops, and when I did I didn't hit them anyway. In short - I played bad, real bad. I ended up playing the dead opposite of how I needed to play. Looking back I had 2 clear options on how to play given the circumstances. 1. play fast, loose and aggressive and try to get into a big pot to chip up early. 2. play ultra-tight and try to get paid off when I finally hit a hand. With such a slow blind structure this was certainly possible but it's hard to implement in PLO. For example, you can wait and wait and wait for prime PLO hands such as AAKK 910JQ etc etc. But, if the flop comes the dead opposite to what you have, you could be in trouble. Option 1 was clearly the best way to approach it, but as they say - Hindsight is 20-20.

I, apparently, decided on option number 3. Which was to play weak tight. I called a lot of pre bets with marginal hands that could be good if they hit, then just folded them to any kind of bet when I didn't hit the flop I wanted. Slowly but surely my stack dwindled and I finally decided to get aggressive at the wrong time and I was out in 860th place.

I sat there numb for a while afterwards, then I started to analyze what just happened. It soon became obvious that I had made 2 vital mistakes. Firstly, I played the event even after coming to the conclusion that it was a stupidly bad move. Secondly, I then proceeded to implement the wrong strategy to the situation I had put myself in.

OK, so I knew what mistakes I had made, the next question was - why had I made them?

I have thought about this for a while and the only reason I can come up with for entering the event is that I wanted my shot, no matter how small. As I said in my last blog, I love the game and the rush I get out of it, a bad excuse for such an error but the only one I can find. The reason for my lack of strategy in the event itself was because I was too busy umming and ahhing over whether I would play at all, I overlooked the most important thing - How to play once there. I went into it with no thought whatsoever in regards to strategy and paid the price. I also went into it in the wrong frame of mind. I was unsure if I had made the right decision to play and that affected my general mood and outlook when I was playing.

Overall a bad day in my quest but I plan on learning from my mistakes and will try hard not to repeat them. I don't want to end this on a negative note so I will end it on something that shows I do (sometimes) learn from my mistakes. Late last night I was playing a SnG sat for W$, I got heads up with even stacks and the guy offered me a chop. Those, of you who read my first entry in this blog, know I was in a similar situation on day 1 and it ended up backfiring on me (you can read about it here http://www.pocketfives.com/6C576143-...33DE0BE72.aspx). Anyway, he offered the chop and I told him that stars wont chop it for us as it was technically a seat but I offered a private chop, which he accepted and honoured.

GL at the tables

Murd
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Day 3 $200+15 Heads Up No-Limit Hold em

After a day of bad decisions yesterday I started the day with a better outlook than I expected. Sure I had made some mistakes but I was happy that I had examined why I made them and fairly confident I wouldn't repeat them. I started off my poker day by looking at todays event - $200 NLHE Heads-up. The first thing I noticed was that it was full. They had a max entry of 1024 players and this had already been reached. "Oh well, there goes my day" I thought. I had a look on the forums here and saw a few people offering/wanting seats, and talking about sitting with the tourny lobby open waiting for people to unregister so they could nab the place left open. I realised that there was a chance for me to get in if I decided I wanted to play.

After yesterday I promised myself I wouldn't just jump into events for the sake of it, that I would take some time, look at the pros and cons of the event and make a decision based on them. Obviously this event was back on my territory, No limit Hold em. The only thing is, you simply cannot catergorize HU NLHE as the SAME as normal NLHE MTT play. HU play is a different beast altogether. I have limited experience in HU SnGs (basically this event would be a series of those) I played a few on paradise early in my poker career, after I found that I was struglling when getting HU in 1 table SnGs. And more recently I have played a few on pacific due to the overwhelming amount of fish that pour money at you there. Most of my HU experience has come at the end of SnGs and when I'm lucky enough MTTs. I keep a record of my SnGs and most of my finishes in the money are either 3rds or 1sts. The reason for this is because when it gets down to the final 3 in a SnG I invariably get very aggressive and either blow them away or get called by monster hands and finsih third.

I looked at the pay out structure of the event and was quite suprised and pleased to see that it would take only (only?!?!) three wins to get in the money. As I said in a previous blog - Heads up is very unpredictable and although the cream normally rises to the top over time, this was going to be one off games. For example, I and pretty much anyone with a basic understanding of the game could beat the best HU specialist in the world over just one game. If however you played that person over and over and over the better player would of course beat you more times than you beat them. My point is that I felt I had as good as chance as a lot of players in this event. Obviously the HU specialists (Jsup for example) would have the best shot but it wasn't too crazy a thought to believe that I could win three matches, even with the competition as high as it is.

So my mind was made up, I would play IF I could get a seat. The rest of the day before the event I didn't actually play that much competitive poker. I've been playing a lot of poker recently (even for me) and felt I should leave it alone. What I did do, however, was something that I've been meaning to do for a long time - Learn another type of poker. I mentioned in my first blog that I wont be playing in the stud/PLO8 type events, as I've never played them before. As I said, I've been meaning to learn these games for a long, long time and I finally decided today was going to be the day! One of the main reasons was because of my WCOOP quest, the sats for some of these events look good value and I feel like I'm missing out on some opportunities to make some W$.

Where do you start when learning a new game? Well I started at the best website on the web. WWW.Teenage-Spitroast.com........ just kidding, of course I meant pocketfives. I posted a question in the forum asking if there was any good books or webpages for 7stud hi/lo or if anyone was willing to give me a quick lesson or chat (ala johnny bax's famous ten minute lesson he got from fischman and others before he won a stud WSOP event). Seal, one of pocketfives greatest contributers in my opinion, posted that he would be happy to give me a few pointers and highfidelity pointed me to a great couple of articles on the subject. The articles were genuinely brilliantly simple and I'd like to thank HIFI for pointing me to them, they were a great starting point. Armed with a little info I hit the play money tables! It was a devastating loss to my play money roll but it was fun and interesting to see the game in action.

I managed to get my seat in the HU event by having the tourny lobby open and waiting for someone to unregister, then clicking the register button and trying to tick the buy in box before anyone got in there first. This in itself was quite a challenge and took me at least 9 or 10 attempts, some of you guys out there are quick off the draw!!!

About 15 minutes before the HU event I started to try and get focussed on the job in hand. I had a quick scan over the names registered. It was an awesome array of talent lined up....... and Chris Moneymaker. I started to wonder who I might face in the first round, could it be someone like Greg Raymer (fossilman on stars), if I did, it would be an awesome story for this blog but probably bad news for me! Would I be unlucky enough to get someone like Jsup who would not only likely school me but do it in front of a crowd. I was starting to actually look forward to the game, whoever it would be against! I was psyching myself up by head butting the wall and listening to "The Eye of the tiger" at full blast....ummm.... wait....did I just say that outloud???

Anyway I got drawn against..................

Some guy I never heard of. Toronto Toro***. OK, I thought, is it good or bad that I've never heard of him? Could be good thing, he may be a fish like me trying to take a shot at some big bucks. It's also bad that I have no information on him whatsoever to start with but he is in the same boat against me. At least if it was jsup or one of the top guys who post on these boards I knew what I would be in for. With the blinds as low as they are to begin with in the WCOOP events I had plenty of time to find out about this toronto guy. AND....Oh boy, did I EVER find out about him.

He was and is a very good player. A great player in fact. He was very solid and I couldn't get him to commit any chips to me when I had any sort of a hand, which was fustrating as I was playing aggressive and thought that he would eventually pay me off when he got fed up with my raising. I won all the small pots and he won all or most of the key larger pots. There was one hand in particular that sticks in my mind, he reraised my standard post-flop raise on a flop of 833. I had 78 and I was sure he was finally making a stand against my raising. I almost all ined but I decided to just reraise enough that if by any chance he did have a 3 I could get out and still give myself a chance to build back up. Perhaps this was my mistake as he reraised me back all in. Maybe he saw what I was trying to do with the raise and made a very good play, maybe he had the 3, he even couldve had something like an under or over pair that he thought was good. If your reading this Toronto I'd love to know what you had : )We had battled for 25 minutes when he finally killed me off when I got 1010 against his KK all in pre. GG me. To be honest I'm probably sugarcoating the schooling he gave me, but what the hell, it's my blog right?

Toronto actually went on to the final 16 of this event and from what I saw and heard, played extremely well. It put my mind at ease a little when he went as deep as he did as it confirmed what I had thought - I had been schooled by a VERY good player. I was hoping he would eventually win it so I could say I got beaten by the winner. I was in good company going out in the first round, an abnormnal amount of P5ers seemed to lose in that round, so I didn't feel too bad.

I finished the night playing (or trying to play) some 7studhi/lo with fellow pocketfiver Mhoddi. There was a couple of funny conversations between Seal, Mho and I as Seal was trying to explain to us the "finer" points of the game. seal was very patient with us as we (I) asked stupid questions like "why does A2378 lose to 23457" and "is 992 any good?".

GL at the tables

Murd

***- I would like to point out that I rarely play stars so if he was/is a stars regular I probably wouldn't have heard of him anyway

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Event 4 $200+15 short handed PLHE

After last nights crash course in 7studhi/lo I thought I would try out a WCOOP sat in that event. You know, test out what I learned, what I didn't learn and generally see how I like the game etc etc. I played in a $11 RnA sat that guaranteed one seat into the $500 studhilo event. This sat only had 27 players in and I thought it would be relatively quick. 3 and a half hours later and I was still playing!!! I was shocked, first of all that it took this long and secondly because I was in the final three. I was starting to think about a JohnnyBax-esque win in my first stud tourny but I the was short stack and unfortunately I went out in third. Even though this was a measley sat and there was only 27 players in it I was really proud of what I had done, having only learned the basics the day before. Big shout out goes to Seal for showing me the ropes and you never know, I may actually play the studhilo event if I can sat in.

I played one sat for the PLHE event and was cruising untill the following hand came up. Now, I wasn't planning on using this blog to catalouge my bad beats but I will tell you this one purely because it's pretty unusual one. Basically, I had JJ and got all in pre against 66 and A6off. A pretty good position to get your chips into. Even better once the flop came 922. The turn brought another 2, ok even better shape. The the river brought the case 2 to make quads on the board and the doufus who called all in with A6 the best hand - 2222Akicker.

On to event #4. First of all, although I am traditionally a NL player I really like PL games BUT one thing I've never been fully comfortable with is 6 handed play. My background is in full 10 man ring games where you can sit and be a rock, just waiting for the big hand to be paid off. This background hampered my MTT play to begin with, I used to be obscenely tight but the last few months I have started to open my game up to great affect having said that, I'm still relatively tight in MTT play. Obviously with it being 6 handed you need to open up your play even more, something that I wasn't sure about doing. There wasn't a question of me not playing the event I just had to figure out how I was going to play. I figured I'd see what type of table I was put on and adjust from there. You know the drill - If it's a tight table become aggressive, if it's a loose table become tight etc etc. One thing that I would look out for was for the guy making all the moves and I would try playing back at him and pick off his bluffs.

The table I was seated at was an agressive one, I was pretty much expecting this as it's the nature of the format and after a while I spotted the guy (mentioned above) who was making all the moves on people. I said to myself that given the opportunity I would get into a pot with this guy and pick him off, either by having a monster and let him bluff into me or by reraising/check raising him in a spot where I thought he was bluffing. The game was moving along and I was down to about 2000 but biding my time waiting for an opportunity. Then the following hand came up that completely threw me off my game and led to my eventual exit. I was BB and had J7 the guy who I mentioned above flat called and we saw a flop. It came KKJ. The guy, as I expected came straight out and bet the pot. I could've reraised him then and there but I felt I could take him for more. There's no way I put him on the king so I flat called in preparation to reraise his inenitable full pot bet raise on the turn. The turn brings a tricky ace. It's still ok though as if he had an A he would've raised pre. He naturally bets the pot, I instantly reraise him the full pot. I'm waiting for him to fold when he does something I REALLY wasn't expecting - he reraised me. OK, maybe he does actually have a king. I thought for a while and folded. That's when he did something that killed my tournament. He showed Q9 for a complete bluff.

Now, obviously it wasn't the hand itself that physically put me out of the tourn as I still had enough to build back up from, but it dealt me a psychological blow that I never recovered from. It wasn't so much that it put me on tilt, it just put me on the back foot and made me second guess myself. It shot my confidence to bits. I asked P5er DelaReine about the hand and he wasn't suprised but he did say these guys who think they are pscyhological masters of the short handed game normally end up messing themselves up. Which this guy did end up doing. In fact, he was out before me.

The hand that I eventually went out on was KJ v KQ on a K high flop. It had been a bad tournament, this WCOOP business was harder than I was anticipating (not that I thought it would be easy). I will say that although I had a bad tournament I really felt for P5er Pnkranger who had played brilliantly to get down to the final 400 or so and took a horrific beat to be knocked out. He got J10o to bluff all of his chips on a flop of A9rag when he had AA for a set, only for a Q and a K to come on the turn and river for a runner runner straight. I rib Pnk about his play (and his wife) on the forum and when we chat but his MTT game has really improved the last few months. His wife is still ugly and banging the postman but hey one out of two aint bad!

GL at the tables

Murd

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Event 5 - $200+15 R&A

My WCOOP quest has been a lot tougher than I first thought it would be. I don't mean the main events themselves, the events so far have been ones that are not my speciality so although I expected to have a better showing in them than I did, I wasn't expecting to win them. When I say it's been tougher than I thought it would be, I mean overall - the sats, writing this blog inbetween playing, the events, my sleep pattern being screwed with and putting up with Pnkranger's badbeat storys all day. That being said - I was in a good mood when I woke up today and was looking forward to event#5.

I started off the day playing what has turned out to be my favourite type (I will discuss this in more detail on one of the days I dont play the days event) of WCOOP sats - A $11turbo rebuy. I love these sats because they only normally take an hour, the play is generally bad and they offer a lot of seats. The bad thing about them is that it can turn into a bit of a lottery towards the end as the blinds increase every 5 minutes but I have had a good record in them so I can put up with this. I managed to qualify in the sat I played but only just! On the last hand on all 3 tables there were about 4 or 5 people all in (becuase of the blinds and antes) with me being one of them, I actually lost the hand (I got dealt 23o, thanks for that pokergods!) but somehow I was awarded the seat!

I had won my seat but as this was a rebuy and add on, I wanted to try and win some more W$ for them. I tried one more sat but busted out early so the next stop was trying to clear my deposit bonus, I did this by playing a Gankload of small buy in SnGs for a couple of hours. I made some coin and fulfilled my FPP requirement at the last minute with a little help from a friend. I was set.

Most of my RnA experience has come from playing the dise 20 and 50k tourns. I play the rebuy hour a little differently than the accepted method of playing loose as hell trying to build a stack and infact it doesn't phase me if I finish the first hour not having played many hands. I am confident enough in my play after the rebuy hour to be able to accumalte chips and most of the time it is the second hour that I chip up. I know that this is the wrong way to go about it and I know there will be some that see this statement and laugh at my thinking but IT IS WHAT WORKS FOR ME and I've had success doing it. This isn't to say that I wont one day adjust my game and try out the first hour frenzy approach that works for the like of NSX, JB, SHEETS etc etc, it's just that at this stage in my poker career I'm happier limiting my rebuys rather than commiting a lot of money that I might not recoup even if I cash.

Anyway, I digress. For those of you who read my blog from event 2, you will know that I was undecided if I would rebuy or add on. For this event, I was defintely going to add on. 3000 chips when the blinds are so tiny is great value and buys you a lot of time to play. I was undecided if I would rebuy straight away or wait and see if I double up early. I thought about it prior to the event and in the end decided to see what my table was like before making my final decision.

My table was painfully slow the first hour, with 2 players taking a stupid amount of time to act every hand. One guy was going insane at them for ruining his chances of "winning the event". Also the table wasn't very aggressive with no one employing the multi rebuy strategy. I ended up rebuying about half way through the first hour purely because I could see the guy who was going insane was tilting badly and I could see him giving me his stack, if I got in that situation with him I wanted to be able to take full advantage and get as many of his chips as possible. We only played about 30 something hands the first hour, of which I only had one of any note. Despite the first hour being a non-event once I added on I was in the middle of the pack. The sceond hour started just as slowly as the first but about half way through I had my first real hand and what a hand it was - AA. I was in late position and was hoping to see a raise before it got to me, there were a couple of limpers and one guy raised quite large in proportion to the blinds. It was folded to me and I decided to raise just the minimum (which was actually quite a lot compared to blinds). I was hoping he had something like QQ or KK and was hoping to see a low flop so I could take all of his chips. He had different ideas and reraised me all in pre. After thinking long and hard for about 1 millionth of a second I called. He showed KK. The board didn't help him and I was on my way. This was a very important hand to me, obviously because of the chips I won but mainly because it also boosted my confidence and settled any nerves I still had.

I had one or two more playable hands that hour and ended up in the top 300 out of about 1400 left (I think - can't remember the exact number of people left) with about 14k. For the first time in my WCOOP quest I was feeling extremely comfortable, confident and relaxed. I looked at the leaderboard and once again the field was awesome. Some of the worlds top pros were playing too - Gus Hansen, Greg Raymer and Scott Fischman were all doing well.

The blind structure in these events is amazing and really suits my stye of play, you have so much room to play it's silly! The third hour went by with me going up and down a lot but never below 11k never more than 16k. I finshed the thrid hour around 400th of 900 with 14k.

I'm sorry that I haven't gone into too much specific hand detail for the first few hours but this is because most of the interesting/crazy hands I had in this tourn were still to come. The following hand came in the fourth hour, when the blinds were starting to come into play and were worth making plays at. From my own point of view it was one of the most interesting hands I played that night as there was a lot of things at work in the hand. Blinds were 200/100 with a 25 ante. I was on the button with AKo. I had around 14k, the SB had around the same and the BB had 26K. The table had been relatively tight but was starting to open up a bit. It was folded around to me. I sat and thought about my options. I was going to raise but I knew I was on the button and I knew how the raise would likely be percieved by the blinds. It would look like the token button raise, which I could try and use to my advantage. I decided to purposely overbet it, so I pushed it to 800. The SB (the one I was hoping would take the bait) folded and the BB reraised me another 1000 to 1800. It was at this point that I made a crucial mistake. Instead of reraising I flat called. In retrospect calling was a horrible play as it gave me no new information about his hand. I should've reraised to see where I was at. If he truly had a monster he would likely all in or at least reraise me and now at least I would've known the true strength of his hand. As it was I had flat called and was now facing a flop with my opponent to act first so at least I had position. The flop came 224. Hmmm. Nice flop. My opponent led out and bet 2600. I flat called, which was my second mistake. I should've pushed or folded (folded in my opinion now). Turn brings an 8 and my opponent all ins. I had to fold.

After that hand I was down to 10k and was still going through everything in my head. For the next 20 or so hands not a lot happened. I won a smallish pot with 97suited against the guy who I played the next hand I will tell you about with. I had around 9.5k when the following hand came up (http://www.pocketfives.com/58C0E27B-...FA7574E78.aspx).

Yes. I'm sure you are all wandering what the hell I was upto. Let me explain or at least try to! There had a few encounters between me and the guy to my immediate left in our blinds about 3 times. Each time I flat called to have him make the same raise on me and each time I folded. I honestly think a lot of the times he did it, he had no hand whatsoever. So I decided to play back at him the next time it is folded around to our blinds, with or without a hand, providing I was reasonably confident he didn't have a callable hand. Well what you see on that hand history is exactly that. It was folded around to me in the SB I was a bit dismayed to have 10 4 off but wasn't going to let it stop me. I flat called and suprise suprise he made exactly the same bet he had done each time before. I instantly all ined, fully expecting a quick fold by him. Instead he made an instacall with KQ off. To say I was shocked was an understatement. I had a huge mixture of emotions going on inside me. I couldn't believe he made that call.......I couldn't believe I just donked off my chips with 10 4 off!!!....... I couldn't believe.....hang on....... I couldn't believe that TEN ON THE FLOP!!!!! I survived it. I had a huge grin on my face as you can imagine. I never say sorry when I badbeat someone or get lucky because I'm not sorry, not in the slightest and I wont be a hypocrite to pretend otherwise. I did however tell him "nice call, unlucky". To be fair to the guy he handled it with extreme class and told me "no problems, you made a good bet and it paid" without a hint of sarcasm.

I was now feeling real good. I had just got lucky and I felt that it was an omen that I was going to push on through and make the cash.

The next hand/series of hands that were of significance to me all happened in the space of a crazy 5 minutes.http://www.pocketfives.com/D5B4E6BE-...0D8E05D52.aspx .

The first hand was devastating. I had the guy that I got in with pegged as the guy that was going to double me. When he allined I just knew he didn't have the K because he would've checked it to me to bet it for him. My only worry was that maybe he had QQ or JJ But that was unlikely as he was the type who would've all ined pre. This was the one hand in the tourny that I used some serious time bank. I think deep down I always knew I had him and had to call I was just trying to convince myself to push the call button! As you can see, I made the correct call and got shafted by him hitting the gut shot on the river. When that J hit the river, I litterally deflated and I had a sick feeling deep in my gut. I thought that was it. Tourny over. Sure I had 5k left over but that wasn't going to carry me far. These were the thoughts going through my head. To be fair, my head was spinning. It's bearing this in mind that I'm really proud at what I did the very next hand. After picking myself up off the floor and after I had stopped swearing, I looked at the screen to see that I had AJ. Now, with 5000 left I almost reacted to my gut feeling of just pushing all in and I really had to bring myself back from the brink of some MAJOR tilt. I stopped and took a second to recompose myself. Instead of pushing all in, which probably would have resulted in everyone folding, I bet the usual 3x BB raise. I had one caller who pushed me all in on a J high flop with 88. I was back to 10k and back in contention. As I said, I'm really proud of myself for being able to bring myself back like that, it's unusual for me to have kept my composure like that and I normally just all in. Then the hand at the bottom of the above link happened. I'll explain why I pushed with it there. The big stack had made that raise a lot and I thought it was an easy pick off. i got lucky. Karma some might say!

The above all happened in the space of 5 minutes and it was a rollercoaster of emotions to say the least. One second I take a sick beat and am looking at going out before the money and the next I'm actually in better shape than I was to begin with. All I can say now, is that it was lucky I was already drinking!

Afer this we headed rather quickly toward the money. What really suprised me was there was absolutely no drop off in the rate that people were busting out even when we were right up to the bubble. We only had to wait about a minute or so before we were IN THE MONEY!!!!

I had accomplished my first major objective in my WCOOP quest. I had cashed in an event. I was so pleased but also determined that I make the most of the opportunity that I had. It was a bit surreal to be honest. I was in the bottom 10% of the field but because the blinds were so low I still had plenty of play left in me.

People continued to drop out at an astounding rate and I continued picking up small pots, trying to build. I had the chipleader on my table and several times I raised his blind for him to fold. I had RAISABLE hands when I did this but if he came back over the top of me I wouldn't have been able to call. Which leads me up to the next hand.

As I just mentioned I had managed to steal the chipleader's blind about 3 or 4 times in a short space of time. I was wishing for a BIG hand to raise him with, because he's going to push back soon with an inferior hand. It was his BB and I was delighted to see QQ. I made exactly the same raise as I had the previous times and to my delight he pushed all in immediately. I called instantly. To my horror he turned over AA. WOW... that's it... I'm done...NH GL.........

then a Queen hits the flop.

WOW... I was gobsmacked. Given what we were playing for, it was probably the best suckout of my life! I still had a job to do so I tried to bring myself back down and get on with it.

The tourny moved along nicely and although I maintained my stack with a few steals and plays here and there I soon found myself nearing the bubble of the next big money level. There was 82 players left with 81 being the next cash level of $2000 (anyone finishing 82nd would get $1560). I was in the BB with A9o. the last time it had been folded around to the SB on my blind he pushed all in on an obvious steal. I knew if it was folded to him again that he would no doubt do it again and although Ac9d is a marginal holding I was pretty sure that he would push with any 2 cards and I'm a big favourite against a random hand. I was actually hoping that it would be folded to him so I could catch him. Sure enough it's folded to him and he instantly bets out I instantly all in and he pretty much instantly calls. Ok, maybe he has something.... well he had Qs7h.

I'll take those odds.

Flop Qc 8c As. - I'm ahead. Nice flop...

Turn Jc - This was a GREAT card for me. It took away the 7c as an out for him as it would give me a flush

he could only win with one of the 2 remaining Qs or the 1 non club 7.

3 outs. Monster favourite.

River 7s - Oh My God.

And that ladies and gents was me busted in 82nd place.

I was numb and felt sick..... had that really just happened?

After a days reflection I'm still sore about that beat but I'm happy with the way I played. I want to thank all of those who stopped by and supported me.

If anyone is interested, I have the hand histories for the tourny in my email and would be happy to forward it to you. Obviously there wont be much in the early hands but some of the play before and after the bubble is quite interesting. Send me a PM and I'll be happy to oblige.

GL at the tables

Murd
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Event 6- $200+15 Limit Hold Em

After yesterdays efforts I got up late in the afternoon and although I was still hurting over the beat that knocked me out, I was happy with the way I played and happy that I finally had a good day in a WCOOP event! Todays event was the $200 Limit Hold Em event. In my early poker career I used to hate limit hold em. Actually 'hate' doesn't do justice to the way I used to feel about limit. But that was then and this is now. I've been playing some limit cash games lately and for some reason my hatred of the game has slowly dwindled over time. I would go as far as saying that I actually enjoy the odd game of 5/10 now - especially late on a saturday night on paradise.

I haven't played that many limit tournys, so my experience for the event wasn't exactly confidence building. The good thing about the sats I played for the event that it gave me a bit of a feel for limit tourny play. Even if it was an exagerated one (rebuy turbo sats obviously exagerated) it was better than no warm up at all and I managed to win my seat first time around, in comfortable fashion. I bubbled the second sat I played in (I was trying to accumalate some W$) and after that one I actually decided to stop playing untill the event itself. I had to write event#5s blog and try to condense 9 hours worth of play into a readable entry, something which I think I failed to do adequately, so apologies if yesterdays blog seemed a bit sketchy and random.

The limit event itself was suprisngly enjoyable. Event#5 was so intense and required so much concentration, I actually found the limit event to be a breath of fresh air. I stayed tight but aggressive and before I knew it we were approaching the money. The tourny went really really fast and I never felt I was in trouble as I had chipped up before the blinds started coming into play more. I'll be honest, there weren't/aren't any particular hands that stand out in my mind in the first 5 hours of play. No bad beats - on or by me. No hands of particular interest. I know that doesn't make fascinating reading but unfortunately it's the truth.

Up untill we made the cash I was really pleased with the way I played. I made very few mistakes and maximised my hands when I had them (very important in limit). Then after we made the cash, I suffered something which I thought I had got out of my game a while ago - post bubble madness. This is the affliction that I normally LOVE seeing others come down with right after you hit the cash in a tourn. We've all seen it, as soon as the money hits, people loosen right up and play to a sub standard level. They figure, I made my money what the hell, lets get lucky. I learnt a long time ago that although you defintely want to chip up as the tourny winds up, it's better to be one of the players getting in AGAINST those suffering PBM than it is to be the one hoping to get lucky. Unfortunately I forgot all of this and after I made the cash I found myself with a full on bout of PBM. I want to include a hand history (a cleaned up version to make it easier reading) to show what a deadly disease PBM can be.Here it is -

*********** # 414 **************

(1200/2400)

Table Seat #3 is the button

Seat 1: CHOCHO (28351 in chips)
Seat 2: SilverTarga (6621 in chips)
Seat 3: FILL A RACK (25624 in chips)
Seat 4: F DumbWalrus (12835 in chips)
Seat 5: livingrich (7474 in chips)
Seat 6: lasvpoker (17076 in chips)
Seat 7: sa1251 (34830 in chips)
Seat 8: NEMESIS45 (12389 in chips)
Seat 9: JOMAPA (37615 in chips)

F DumbWalrus: posts small blind 600
livingrich: posts big blind 1200

Dealt to F DumbWalrus [Jc Kh]

(thanks mhoddi and BGX for the brilliant support and conversation as detailed here, LOL)

rarely sober [observer] said, "BGX...wtf"
rarely sober [observer] said, "Pitt sucks"
BigGunX [observer] said, "Man they're looking like dogshiiiiit"

SilverTarga: raises 1200 to 2400

F DumbWalrus: calls 1800

*** FLOP *** [Tc 9h 2s]

F DumbWalrus: bets 1200

SilverTarga: raises 1200 to 2400

F DumbWalrus: calls 1200

*** TURN *** [Tc 9h 2s] [6h]

F DumbWalrus: checks

SilverTarga: bets 1821 and is all-in

F DumbWalrus: calls 1821

*** RIVER *** [Tc 9h 2s 6h] [8c]

*** SHOW DOWN ***

F DumbWalrus: shows [Jc Kh] (high card King)

SilverTarga: shows [Ac Jd] (high card Ace)

SilverTarga collected 14442 from pot

*** SUMMARY ***

Total pot 14442 | Rake 0

Board [Tc 9h 2s 6h 8c]

I don't think it was a 'horrendous' play but looking back, I do think it was unneccessary. My main reasoning was that Silvertarga had shown a propensity to raise in position with less than premium hands. This feeling was heightened by him having a short stack. The thing that I've wondered about since was my reraise on the flop. I didn't think he had a lot and I thought I could hit 10 cards to win the hand (3 Ks, 3 Js and 4 Qs) if I wasn't already winning and there was a chance he would fold (however small). I was NOT expecting the reraise and I still think it was a strange play by him, but I believe that he had made his choice that he was going to live or die with his hand and reraised accordingly. I would be interested to hear some opinions from some of the top players on this hand, even if it is to tell me that I suck!

That hand knocked me from a little below average to well below average. I fought for a while afterwards, picked up a few pots pre started to come back, then lost another race with a short stack JJ to my AQ. I panicked slightly and got a little too loose at the end and finished up 145th out of 1700. I went out playing A3 against AQ.

Although a little disappointed to have come down with PBM I was happy to cash in this event because as I mentioned, I have little limit tourny experience. It also meant that I had cashed 2 days running in WCOOP events! I was starting to enjoy this after all.

GL at the tables

Murd
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