PokerStars tournament report
I won.
That is all.
Maybe I'll post some hands a little later if anything strikes me, but the long and the short of it is this:
1:00am last night start time, 245 players, $100 buy-in. I ended up taking first place, good for 6.7K USD. Not a huge win, but first place is first place. (What I mean by "not a huge win" is "not a Dave Scharf at the Commerce win"....) I've certainly booked bigger wins than this but I'm particularly happy about this one because I haven't really been playing a lot lately... especially MTT's because they are so time-consuming. It's kind of like winning the lottery after having bought only one ticket instead of ten. Kind of... you know what I mean.
I dodged a bullet which would have probably seen me go out in fourth place... we were playing 2K/4K at the time, folded to me in the small blind (60K) and I have ATo. I make it 12K to go. The BB immediately moves all-in (45K). I thought to myself... ATo... 4-handed game... it definitely looks like I'm stealing (as it was certainly stealing time), so the BB could easily be on a re-steal with a hand worse than AT...
Anyway, I thought about it and decided that, against either of my other two opponents, I'd call. But against THIS guy--who had been playing a very snug game--I'd give him credit for a hand. I told him I was folding ATo ("one time") in an effort to get him to show me what he had, and he showed me AQo. Whew.
Heads-up, and I had about 30K or so against 280K or so playing 3K/6K blinds. (I don't remember the exact stack sizes, but that is close...) I made the classic "do you want to chop the money 50/50" joke that people who are heads-up and shortstacked usually make, but he didn't go for it. I won a few pots and we were even. With 11K left in the prize pool for 1st and 2nd, I said that we could each take 5.5K... I wasn't committing, just throwing it out there for discussion. He said "no thanks".
On the next hand, he limped from the small and I checked with 57o. The flop came 689... woo hoo!!! He bet, I raised, and he moved all-in. Not a bad play on his part... I had been getting a little out of line, and he certainly had enough chips to get me to fold a lot of hands. Unfortunately for him, as I mentioned, I had a straight. I called, he had 78, didn't improve, and that was that.
Of course, the rail was saying "bet he wishes he took that deal now" etc... but I was too busy doing my happy dance at that point. Speaking of the rail, SirWatts showed up when we were down to four or five players... Watts, what the hell were you doing up at like five in the morning? It ended at around 5:30... couldn't sleep until 6:00... poker is fun.
I don't have the hand history here, and I don't have access to Stars here, but I'll see if anything stands out when I get home and post a hand or two for discussion.
That is all.
Maybe I'll post some hands a little later if anything strikes me, but the long and the short of it is this:
1:00am last night start time, 245 players, $100 buy-in. I ended up taking first place, good for 6.7K USD. Not a huge win, but first place is first place. (What I mean by "not a huge win" is "not a Dave Scharf at the Commerce win"....) I've certainly booked bigger wins than this but I'm particularly happy about this one because I haven't really been playing a lot lately... especially MTT's because they are so time-consuming. It's kind of like winning the lottery after having bought only one ticket instead of ten. Kind of... you know what I mean.
I dodged a bullet which would have probably seen me go out in fourth place... we were playing 2K/4K at the time, folded to me in the small blind (60K) and I have ATo. I make it 12K to go. The BB immediately moves all-in (45K). I thought to myself... ATo... 4-handed game... it definitely looks like I'm stealing (as it was certainly stealing time), so the BB could easily be on a re-steal with a hand worse than AT...
Anyway, I thought about it and decided that, against either of my other two opponents, I'd call. But against THIS guy--who had been playing a very snug game--I'd give him credit for a hand. I told him I was folding ATo ("one time") in an effort to get him to show me what he had, and he showed me AQo. Whew.
Heads-up, and I had about 30K or so against 280K or so playing 3K/6K blinds. (I don't remember the exact stack sizes, but that is close...) I made the classic "do you want to chop the money 50/50" joke that people who are heads-up and shortstacked usually make, but he didn't go for it. I won a few pots and we were even. With 11K left in the prize pool for 1st and 2nd, I said that we could each take 5.5K... I wasn't committing, just throwing it out there for discussion. He said "no thanks".
On the next hand, he limped from the small and I checked with 57o. The flop came 689... woo hoo!!! He bet, I raised, and he moved all-in. Not a bad play on his part... I had been getting a little out of line, and he certainly had enough chips to get me to fold a lot of hands. Unfortunately for him, as I mentioned, I had a straight. I called, he had 78, didn't improve, and that was that.
Of course, the rail was saying "bet he wishes he took that deal now" etc... but I was too busy doing my happy dance at that point. Speaking of the rail, SirWatts showed up when we were down to four or five players... Watts, what the hell were you doing up at like five in the morning? It ended at around 5:30... couldn't sleep until 6:00... poker is fun.
I don't have the hand history here, and I don't have access to Stars here, but I'll see if anything stands out when I get home and post a hand or two for discussion.
Comments
Betgo was the player in the BB when I had AT that time, and he showed me AQ. If you thought I was playing tight, you shoulda seen this guy! He wasn't playing any hands. So when it was folded to me in the blinds against him, I'd vary my play between raising (and picking it up), limping (and picking it up with a bet at the flop), and folding sometimes so he wouldn't get TOO frustrated and start playing back at me.
From a results-oriented point of view, folding AT was a good idea because he had AQ. ;-) Everything I know about poker was telling me that AT would usually be the best hand in that particular spot, but I don't know... sometimes, you know how it is... instinct... trusting and acting on that instinct... and I hit the fold button. Whew.
The other guy ("MANN" something or other) was playing well. Either he was picking up big hands every time I was stealing, or he is not afraid to put his stack in the middle if he thinks someone is making a play for his BB. I don't know if you saw... I insta-folded a couple of times against him after tripling the blinds (with like 95o) and having him push all-in. A strong player. And when it got down to 3 players, he had a big chip lead and was just pushing in on every single hand. I figured all I needed was a better-than-average hand, but none came in that short space of time, and the other player ended up busting out against him.
Interesting final table, for sure. Can you give me the link to the 2+2 thread?
It's nice to see the 'big boys' of this forum playing well.
Johnnie
That's all that matters!!! Good stuff and congrats!
Cheers
Lou
And thanks to Johnnie, STR8, and Magi for the kind words. It seems like I've been playing and posting on here forever, with some breaks (some short, some long) but I still love the forum and the game of poker.
Incidentally, I had not one but TWO different people in last night's tournament tell me that they think I'm a "loser", and that they hoped I would lose. (As I suppose losers do...) Minor suckouts in minor pots and these busted people just FREAK OUT from the rail! In some ways I like Party's policy better... unless you're in the game, you can't chat. Which means that once you bust out you can't sit on the rail and whine at the player who busted you.
Although I will confess that sometimes when I played at Party (I don't anymore now that the Americans are gone) I wished I could say a word or two after being bounced from a SNG by a 2 or 3 outer. Ah well, it's probably all for the best.
Tournament 36701742
Betgo is a very strong player. I would have called AT very quickly against him. Fold worked out well though!
Ryan
Question, do you ever play in the 215$ stars tournies?
Yes, I play the Stars $215 and $530 Sunday MTT's as often as I can, which is about once every two months or so as it turns out. I wish I could play every week, but that can't happen.
With the huge fields now, there's a lot of luck involved obviously, but the prize pool is so damn juicy... My best finish in a Sunday $215 was 2nd place, but that was a little over two years ago I think.
May 23, 2004. 2nd place out of 1,241. Wow how times have changed. That would have netted you over 100K these days.