By
SamENole |
Published
Jan 05 2006, 11:30 PM
I arrived at my table without really recognizing anyone, which is almost always a good thing. After getting a feel for my table, it was obvious that I had about 8 fairly tight players and 1 super aggressive European that was literally raising 8 out of 10 hands every round. He was obviously winning a lot of pots, but he would get played back at sometimes and have to fold. Then he got KK against another guy's QQ all in pre and was even more aggressive. I was down to about 8000 after missing a ton of flops when a weird hand happened. Blinds were 25-50, and I look down and see KK. I was intending to raise to 200 but apparently grabbed 2 500 chips instead, so I did a 20x bb raise to 1000. I didn't really make it any secret that I made a mistake, but I didn't expect to get any action. Sure enough, it's folded to Mr. Aggressive, and I hear "reraise to 2500." As someone who isn't gonna fold KK preflop very often, especially to a super aggressive player, I push all in. He thinks for about a minute and decides to muck, so I'm up to 11k.
The next interesting hand I played was again vs. Mr. Aggressive. He raised to 150, and I decided to see a flop with Q
10
. There were about 4 others in the hand, so I tried to hit something. The flop came Q 10 5 rainbow. Mr. Aggressive led out with 400, and I decided to just call and see what came on the turn; everyone else folded. The turn brought an A, and Mr. Ag checked. He had been doing continuation bets on the flop and turn just about every hand he had played, so I checked behind him. The river was a blank 6 and he bet 1000, I smooth called, and he flipped over KJ for the nut straight. If I had raised the flop or bet the turn, I could've lost a lot more.
After a combination of being card dead and getting bullied by KrazyKanuck's g/f over and over all day(she showed a big hand almost every time), I was back down to 8000 when my next big hand happened. Obv, Mr. Aggressive raised to 300 and I reraised to 1200 with QQ, which he called. The flop came 10 2 3 rainbow, he checked, I bet 1500, and he checkraised me to 6000, basically putting me all in. I thought the raise was too big for a set, and thought that JJ or 99 was more likely, so I pushed, which was only 1200 more. For some reason it took him awhile before calling, and he flipped over AKo. The turn and river were blanks, and I was up to 16k, while he was crippled to 3k. A few hands later ,he was out.
After that, I got up to about 20k after getting AA vs. a shortstack's KK and having it hold up. Right before the dinner break, though, a guy raised to 700 in the cutoff (100-200 blinds). I had JJ in the SB and made it 2100. He thought for about 2 seconds and pushed all in for 12k. He was a fairly tight player who I had been talking to all day, so I figured I was 50-50 at best and a 4:1 underdog at worst. After a lot of thought, I laid it down, and he showed AKs. The hand could've gone either way, but if I had lost, I would've been down to 7k and figured the risk of losing was worse than the reward of winning, even if I had known 100% that it was a race.
After that I took more hits from KK's g/f and was down to about 13k when the guy to my right raised to 1100 (150-300 blinds). I looked down and saw AA and reraised to 2600, which he called. The flop came J 5 3 with 2 spades, and he led out with 3500. I wanted to take it down right there, so I pushed. He thought for forever and eventually folded and said he had AK of spades. That got me back to close to 20k when our table broke. I was moved to a table with a friend of mine, -BBJ-, to my right and Hoyt Corkins across from me. This table was pretty uneventful other than me knocking out my friend with AK in the bb. He was extemely shortstacked with about 2500 chips and tried to push with 7 10o... The board was 4486, so he had a ton of outs, but he missed the river. After that, I stole the blinds a few times and eventually finished with 26,100 which I am happy about. Most of my tournaments, I have usually finished day 1 with about 1.5x the starting stack, so I have a little extra to work with this time. Good luck to everyone playing tomorrow.