Friday, September 11th, 2009

I arrive shortly after the 1pm $350+$50 gets underway. There’s 15 tables going, that’s a pretty good sign. We end up with 151 entrants. Starting stack is 8k chips, level one blinds are 25/25, and the levels are 40 minutes long.

Level 1: I end the level with 8200 chips. The entire table is limping most hands, only occasional preflop raises. Lots of action after the flop, I’m not getting involved with anything speculative here. There appear to be many super soft targets here, and a couple loose guys that get aggressive post flop.

Level 2: 25/50 blinds. I play smallball and chip up to 10,000 chips. I play my good hands fast and that’s about it. No one at my table has busted yet.

Level 3: 50/100 blinds. I limp from the button with AK96 with a suited ace, and we go to the flop many ways. Flop comes 866. I check, the big blind bets 500, and I am the only caller. The turn gives me the nut flush draw with a low club. BB checks, I bet 1500 and the BB calls. The river is a fairly harmless looking jack. The BB now leads out for 4500 chips. I’m not willing to commit that much of my stack with bare trips. If he was bluffing good on him. I end the level with 7000 chips.

Level 4: 75/150 blinds. I win one noteworthy pot playing bluffcatch. Another big limped pot, I’m in with AJxx double suited(sad that I can’t remember the other two cards!). Flop comes AJ5 with two hearts. I don’t have hearts. the flop checks around. Turn is a four, giving me top two. I bet about 3/4 of the pot and get called only by one player who i have position on. The river is another 4 and she comes out betting. It smells like a nuts or nothing type of bet on the river, and I make the call. She has a busted heart draw and I take a decent pot. I end level four with 9500 chips.

Level 5: 100/200 blinds. Big hand here… I limp QQxx along with about 7 others. Flop comes QJ8 rainbow. There’s a bet from early position and 2 callers. I can’t help but assume the nuts are out there, and I call. Turn is a king. There’s an all in from a short stack for less than half the pot. There’s a caller in front of me… I decide to make the call again, I’m committing a lot of chips to this hand but I’m getting better than 6:1 here. River is a jack. The guy in front of me shoves what little he has left into the middle and I call. The initial aggressor has ATxx… no T9, just a gutter that hit. The guy in front of me that shoved the river shows KKQx, hitting a higher set on the turn. Ok then. I’m down to 2k chips at this point. I’m just looking for a way to get my money in a few times. I see QQJ8 double suited. There’s a raise and 3 callers in front of me, I shove all in and 3 people call. AAxx, a random low four cards, and TTxx… the flop is 3 low clubs. One of my suits is clubs. I quadruple up. I end the level with around 9000 chips.

Level 6 & 7: I putter around badly in these two levels, about halfway through level 7(200/400 blinds) I get moved to a new table. I play tight for a little while to see how the table is playing. Certainly not 7 limpers every hand. I have 8000 chips after level 7.

Level 8: The average chip stack is now well over 20k, and the blinds are 300/600. I start raising a lot more, looking for spots to try to double up. I pick up a few pots potting it after one limper. With 10k in chips, I get AAK8 double suited in the big blind. There’s a raise to 1500 from mid position, everyone else folds, and I re-pot it. MP folds and I drag the pot. I end level 8 without having shown down anything. i’ve got 12,000 chips, there are 40 players left. Either 15 or 18 pay, there was some confusion on that. The average stack is over 30k.

Level 9: 400/800 blinds. The blinds hit me pretty quickly and I drop down to 10k chips. I steal one pot preflop to get back up a little. Then i catch KQJ7 in late position. There’s one limper, and I pot it. The limper calls. There’s 7200 in the pot and I have about 7k left. The flop comes A88. limper checks, I debate a little and check. The turn is a blank. limper checks again, and I move all in. Limper folds and I am up to 14.5k. Next orbit, in the small blind, I have TT87 with diamonds. A couple people limp, I limp in the SB, BB checks. Flop J96 with two spades. Not ideal, but I’m still less than half the average stack here. I check, there’s a bet, and I check-raise the size of the pot. It leaves me with only about 3k left, I’m going to shove any turn. I’ve got 14 straight outs, though if someone has spades I’ve only got 9 good outs, and there are higher straight draws that could hurt me. The bettor calls. The turn is a 6, I put in the rest of my chips, he calls. He shows AJT6, for a bare top and bottom pair, no flush draw. There’s one ten left in the deck that could save me, but it doesn’t come, and I’m out about 30th.

Fun tournament, I was a little off my game early with the whole 8 players limping every hand thing. A couple times I would put in a raise of 5 or 6 times the big blind after a some limpers and would still get 8 way action. That put me in an awkward position, because I would be committing 5-10% of my stack to make that kind of raise early on, and in really weird spots when it went 6 or 7 ways to the flop and I didn’t flop the nuts. I limped along some in mid and late positions with hands that could flop big, suited aces with some other coordination, bigger pairs, etc.

I didn’t play any cash, choosing to head home and watch Georgia Tech/Clemson and the NFL opener. In the Borgata thread on 2+2, I noticed that there were 3 PLO games going later that night, it would have been fun to play there, but I *really* look forward to Georgia Tech/Clemson, and would have been watching TV more than playing poker, so I did the smart thing and left.

DAY: -$400 (the tourney entry fee)
TRIP: $0

Exactly breakeven, har. Hopefully there will be lots of PLO Friday and Saturday, and hopefully I will play well!

This entry was posted on Friday, September 11th, 2009 at 2:13 pm by Posted By Radii and is filed under Ring Games. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.