Live Trip Report: Event #1 ($365 NLHE)- (novel incoming)-
I decided that I was going to play a few of these events and sold action a month or so ago. The field is generally very soft and I was amazed at how poorly the players were. As I walked into the building, I was reminded on how much I truly hate the casino- it’s a place filled with old, smelly degenerates. One thing I do love about the Horse Shoe, however, is the chicken fried steak- delicious.
I drew the 2 seat. The structure for these events is actually somewhat decent- we started with 10,000 chips and 25/50 blind levels. Each level was 30 minutes long and it was slower than some of the other tourneys I’ve played in Vegas.
I’ll be describing the opponents as I write.
Opening sequence- Everyone is open limping and or folding every hand. The table is pretty soft all around and everyone seems fairly poor in terms of skill. That being said, I know I’m not perfect and quite donkish at times with regards to tourneys, so maybe I fit right in.
Hand 1- I complete 9
7
after a bunch of limpers. The flop is 8
T
2
and I bet out, getting two callers. The turn is the J
and I bet fairly large, getting one call (other guy folded).
This player we’ll call Passive Reg. Passive Reg is the same guy at every table who chats a lot and says stuff like “Really? Ya got that King?” or “Oh, I let you get there, huh?”. He acts like he’s a solid player, but in reality, he’s just a passive calling station. I did not know this at the time of this hand.
So the river is the Q
and I think that I should have made a smallish bet (like 1/3rd pot). Instead, I checked, hoping he’d bluff some random hand (something like A8 or whatever). He flips over J8 and my hand is good.
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During this period, I’m stealing every now and again and opening fairly liberally. I do have this asian LAG chick to my left and she plays a fair amount of hands. That being said, everyone was folding so often (and playing so scared post flop) that I was honestly thinking opening like J8o in MP was profitable. I held myself in check a bit though (I’ll discuss more of this later).
Hand 2- Older semi aggressive guy limps in EP, I raise KK and he is the only caller. The flop is J
6
5
and he checks, I bet, he check/raises small. I mull for a second and then call. The turn is the 2
and he bets small, I call. The river is the T
and he bets again.
This part is an LOL online poker player part and I didn’t see how much he bet, so I threw in some chips thinking it was a call. In reality, I accidentally threw in one too many chips and they said it was a raise (I had to throw in one more chip to make it a miniraise on his bet). He insta chucks in the chip and he shows QJo and my hand is good.
I’m feeling pretty solid at this point and I’m still stealing here and there. This far in the tournament, there are a few rocks (total nits) and one guy to my direct right (the 1 seat) who seems like he is semi competent.
Hand 3- A few limp to me and I raise A
J
and get one call from the Passive Reg. The flop is A
8
7
and I bet, he calls. The turn is the 6
and I bet again, he calls. The river is the 9
and I think and check. He mutters “man, I bet I just got counterfeited” and then flips over 8
6
and my hand is good.
We take a break and I get to watch AQ chop with AK on a KQQr board (J/T run out obviously). Asian LAG chick is pissed off.
Hand 4- a super rock limps in MP and I raise K
J
and get two callers, the main villain being the nit with glasses. Rock glasses is the name I’ll give him. He hasn’t played many hands at all and does super obvious things like shake his head but then calls a bet or two…truly bizarre. He seems to be super tight and somewhat passive post flop.
The flop is K
6
8
and I bet, he calls, other guy folds. The turn is the J
and I bet large, he calls again. The river is the A
and that’s obviously a pretty ****ty river, so I put out a blocking bet (like 2k into 6k) and he calls with Q
T
. I have no ****ing idea what this guy was doing on the flop but whatever, super nice turn for him. I’m somewhat tilted by this result but just shake it off.
Hand shortly after: The 1 seat right next to me is the only somewhat solidish guy I’ve seen thus far. He hasn’t played many hands and the only history I have with him is when I 3-bet his open early on with AK and he called and c/f-ed 224r board. His name is Atlanta Braves (he had a hat and matching jersey).
Atlanta Braves gets in a pot against a short stack donkey and Rock glasses. Shorty gets it PF and the Rock glasses calls (so does Atlanta Braves). The flop is Qxx and Rock glasses check/calls a bet. The turn is the Q and Rock glasses checks, Atlanta Braves bets, and Rock glasses shakes his head in disgust and eventually calls. Talk about a horrific poker face- you could tell this guy just wanted to get to showdown and probably could just bluff him off the pot. He’s such a strange player though that he might actually call regardless of you knowing that he doesn’t like the situation.
The river is a brick and Rock glasses checks, Atlanta Braves bets big, and Rock glasses folds in disgust. Atlanta flips over KQs and has the best hand over the short stack. Pisses me off that Rock glasses is giving my chips away but whatever.
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I go fairly card dead for a long time. I open here or there and either have to just c/f the flop or I c-bet and then give up. The chips are moving around and 3 people actually bust within a 30 minute time span (we get this aggro older LAG who seems quite good and then another middle aged regular guy).
Hand 5- big mistake/bad play hand on my part hehe. Where the hell is the fun in a tournament if you can’t make a stone cold bluff sometime? I guess this is me getting a little bored, unfocused. Note: This hand is pretty poor by me and I know this…just telling you that now.
Atlanta Braves opens in EP, I call with K
Q
. We’re both somewhat deep and the largest stacks at the table. We’re heads up to the flop, which is 9
4
5
. He bets and I call, thinking that he’s fairly tight/solid and that I can get away with floating here. I thought about raising but raising doesn’t really make a ton of sense given my overall value range here.
The turn is the J
and he bets again. So here’s my decision- do I continue with this plan of doing another float or do I just dump it here? I’d guess that he’s clearly somewhat strong here given he opened early and has followed through on this board. Getting people to fold overpairs isn’t really a good strategy in my eyes and I probably should have just folded. Regardless, I decided to just go with it and try to make him fold. I felt that a river raise was probably more credible since no one ever really raises the river without the nuts, so I called his bet.
The river was a total brick and he made a small blocking bet of 3k. I thought for a second and then made it 9k, which is a healthy amount of chips at this level. He tanks for a while and then folds. I laugh at my idiocy.
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So Atlanta Braves clearly gets super steamed over this and a few other hands. He gets into situations where he starts to raise flops and then folds to shoves that are less than a mini raise back to him.
I start to get semi chipped down over the course of a few levels. Aggro older LAG is running people over with a big stack and there’s not much anyone can do to stop him. I win a small pot vs. another guy when he bluffs with T9 on a AJTxx board and I had QQ. I also win another small pot where I call a CO open from the player as in KK hand (and he had QJ) with QJo this time. The flop is ATxT we check down to the river, which is a King (completing the flop flush). This hand was the last before the break and I bet and he calls with KQ.
I see a hilarious hand where Atlanta Braves check/raises on an AT5r board against a short stack who clearly wasn’t bet folding anything. The shorty jams over the c/r and Atlanta Braves calls for a few thousand more (lol). The shorty had AT and Atlanta Braves had 68hh for no pair/no draw. Atlanta Braves was clearly tilting hardcore at this time and was playing super erratically.
Hand 6- So I open AQs from UTG+1 and all fold to Atlanta Braves, who grabs a bunch of chips and re-raises me. In general, I think this is a fold given I opened from UTG+1 and showed a ton of strength (and he shows a lot by 3-betting me). However, I feel pretty confident he could do this with AJ/etc type of hands as well, so I just shove and he calls instantly. I’m not feeling too good and mutter “****” when he insta calls, only to see he has 55. He wins the race and goes back to playing more solid. He had a medium stack and at this point, this leaves me with about 12k in chips at 200/400 (30bbsish).
So at this point, I’m semi tilted because he made such a spazzy play. I shake it off and continue to play.
Older LAG is still running people over. He does strange things like donks pot and bets pot all around. It’s an interesting strategy and he’s definitely picking up his share of pots. That being said, he does some really weird PF sizings, which leads to this next hand…
Hand 7- Older LAG opens in MP to 3k at 200/400. With like 12k effective, I just ship it with JJ. Everyone else folds and he mulls and then calls. The board runs out 6579A and I’m out of the tournament. It sucks and I leave disappointed.
I will now post some reflections in another post as to break this long thing up a bit.
Last edited by orange; 04-12-2013 at 12:28 AM.