Poker Articles

Whats up everyone?  Been a long time again I know.  Between playing a lot of poker and trying to finish up school, so it's been kind of hard to keep up.  I've been doing pretty well lately in cash games and sit and go's, but not so much in tournaments.  I keep making it far in every tournament I play, but then something bad happens towards the end.  I am convinced that I have a tournament curse, and many of my friends seem to think so as well.  I have been told by Beanie and Denny Lemieux on numerous occasions that I have worse luck in tournaments than anyone they have ever met.  I am hoping the poker gods are giving me bad beat after bad beat at these final tables for a reason, and that I might have some big wins comin up in the future.

So everyone keeps asking me about a heads up strategy blog, and I promise, I will definitely do something in the near future about heads up play.  It isn't something that I just want to write in an hour and throw out there.  I want to be able to put some time and thought into it, and right now, sleeping 12 hours a night, going to class once or twice a week, and playing 8 hours of poker a day hasn't allowed me the time I need to put in all my effort.

I qualified for the main event of the World Series of Poker this past Sunday, and I am really excited about it.  Some of my friends were asking me why I was on such a high, being that I win or lose the $10k buy in on a weekly basis.  It is hard for me to explain, but there is something different about the World Series than any other poker tournament.  I was really excited when I won the Aruba trip last month, but I was probably 10 times happier when I won this seat. First of all, I was a little bit worried that I wouldn't satellite in, and I am not crazy about the idea to put up $10k dollars to play in a tournament with 5000 people.  It sort of felt like a big weight lifted off my shoulders, and since I won the seat, all I can think about is the World Series.  I turned 21 at the end of last June, so I wasn't able to play in any event last year, but this year I plan on playing 3-5 events besides the main event.  I won my way in by playing the $600 buy in on pokerstars.  305 people played, and they awarded 16 players the $11k prize package.  It is ironic that I won my seat through Pokerstars, because as most people who know me or watch me on Ultimatebet know, I am not very fond of Pokerstars.  I don't know why I feel this way, but so many bad things have happened to me in tournaments on that site.  This satellite was very close to another awful moment for me and Pokerstars.

I was able to triple up within the first ten minutes of the tournament, when a dream situation came up.  The player under the gun limped in, and I also limped in from middle position with 10 10.  The player directly behind me raised the minimum, and the 3 of us saw a flop.  The flop was ace 10 5 rainbow.  I bet out about 1/3 of the pot because i figured one of my opponents had an ace and would most likely raise.  The player behind me raised the size of the pot, and the under the gun player flat called.  I instantly knew what both players had, or at least felt like I had a very good idea, so I felt there was no reason to slowplay or get tricky.  With the 2500 starting chip count, we each had about 400 in the pot, and I reraised it up to 1000.  The player behind me took a very long time and called, so I ruled out him possibly having A A, and then the player under the gun pushed all in.  I wanted action from both players because I am a greedy bastid, so I took a lot of time before calling the all in bet.  To my surprise the player behind me called both of our all ins with A K, and the player under the gun had 5 5 like I thought he did.  The turn brought a queen, giving A K player 4 outs, but the river was a blank, and I was off to an unusually great start. 

Although this tournament only had 305 players, it lasted between 6 and 7 hours.  I was able to remain in the top four about 90% of the tournament, and I was never out of the top 20.  I just hung around and tried avoiding any major swings.  It took us about 2 hours to play from 30 down to 16, and the suspense was crazy.  I made a somewhat stupid move with about 20 players left.  I was in decent, but not amazing shape with 29k in chips, and the action was folded around to me.  The player in the small blind was shortstacked with 17k in chips and the player in the big blind, who was folding to every steal I was making, had 21k.  The blinds were 1k-2k, and I had A J.  I was definitely going to raise, but I could not figure out how much I wanted to make it.  The player in the small blind was pushing all in to a lot of raises, and the player in the big blind was folding everything.  I decided that I did not want to raise 6k and be reraised off my hand, because I would then become the low stack and the target for the big stacks to pick on.  I pushed all in, and as usual for my tournament curse, the player in the big blind beat me into the pot.  He had A K off, and I was in awful shape.  The flop wasn't great, but it was decent, 10 10 9 with 2 diamonds.  I had the ace of diamonds, and he had the king of diamonds.  The turn brought a low diamond, so I now had any diamond or any jack for the win, and if the board paired again I would tie.  Shockingly, the river was a blank, and it looked certain that I would be the next player out. 

I was left with 6k in chips, and the blinds were 1k-2k.  The next hand, I was dealt Ah10h and moved all in, and I was able to double up after the big blind called with junk.  I proceeded to go all in the next 4 hands with garbage and was right back to over 20k in chips after no one called.  When we were down to the bubble, I was very low on chips, but I liked my chances.  4 other players were around the same as me in chips.  The blinds were 2k-4k, and 5 of us had about 15k in chips.  I was dealt 8 8, 10 10, akdd, and had to fold all of these hands preflop.  The shorter stacks were folding every hand, but I had more chips than 3 of them, so I figured one of them would have to lose before I did if we all kept folding. 

Finally, after an hour or so of hand for hand boredom, one of the short stacks pushed all in after a raise from under the gun.  I knew he had a monster, because he hadn't played a hand in almost 2 hours. After the under the gun big stack called him, the hands were flipped, and the short stack had K K to the other player's 2 2. There were a few all ins prior to this hand, and each time, the short stack doubled up through the big stack.  I was beginning to think I was going to be screwed over once again on Pokerstars and bubble out of my seat.  The flop brought 10 4 5 with no possible runner runner flush draws for the 2 2. I was praying for a duece, and if anyone saw me sitting in my chair, they would have cracked up.  The turn brought an ace, giving 2 2 four more outs, and the river was a beautiful 2.  I yelled for the first time playing poker since I won the $500 buy in tournament almost a year ago.  I truely felt bad for the player with K K, because that is a hard thing to go through.  He did get his 600 dollars back for his 6 and a half hours of work, so all is not bad I guess.  Either way, I'm pumped about the whole situation and can't wait to play in my first World Series of Poker main event.