Saturday an impromptu tournament was held over at the Banea School of Poker, and I was looking forward to it because I had been on a run of bad luck/bad playing lately, and when I was winning it wasn't worth the hour or so I spent to get it.
There were a few new faces there this time, along with some familiar ones. The funny thing is a no drinking mandate was placed on the environment, and someone showed up with beer, so it was kind of funny that he hadn't checked his email, and he had no clue, and he looked so ready to get wasted. Well I guess that ensured the streak was going to be broken of the drunk guy winning the big tournaments (LOL).
I felt confident considering my recent play, and I actually won a hand early with a pair of Jacks really wasn't much to the hand kind of boring at early levels, there was an Ace on the board and that limited my aggresiveness a little. One of AG's friends showed up who had played in the Party Poker Million Tournament, and most consider him a semi-pro, so I was interested to see how good he was.
I messed up on an early hand I raised before the flop with KQ offsuit, and I was called by the chip leader who had been on a hot streak making unbeleivable hands like a few wins with Q3 which he calls his lucky hand. Everyone else goes away, and the flop comes 8 K 5, so I am feeling fairly good about the raise wondering what Mark has on the other side of the table. He comes out with a bet of $150, which kind of throws me off a bit and he wasn't even hesitant about it, so I decide to see how serious he is about playing this hand and I raise to $500 total which he calls immediately. The next card is a 4, and he customizes a bet to put me all-in, these are the type of hands I have a hard time with, my thought process goes like this, he called a raise before the flop and he wasn't one of the blinds, this usually means big cards or a decent sized pocket pair, he is confident enough in his hand that my raise was like nothing to him, and he was anxious to push all-in. So I am thinking he has AK, 2-pair (doubt it), or a pocket pair that he made a set with. Either way I think he had me beat, so I give up the hand, what usually happens to me in those type of hands is I would call the all in and get blindsided by the set, this time I decided to make my stand later.
That hand somewhat handcuffed me as I was down to $1000 chips and just about every hand was raised so playing drawing hands or junk was going to be difficult. After folding a bunch of hands I made it to the final table, with about $700 chips as I didn't play that many hands, I look at AG's stack and he has a huge stack of chips and here I am still wondering how to accumulate so many chips, so you can have some bullets to play in a tournament. One of the first hands I get at the final table is A 10 suited, I figured I might as well make my stand with this. AG calls my all-in along with one other player, a 10 comes on the flop and they don't make their hands and I triple up. Then "The Gimp" goes out who was breathing down my neck in the points race at the time, "The Bat" went out as well so now I am feeling I can take advantage of that fact because The Bat always over bets his hand, and The Gimp won't let you see any cards for cheap if he has a piece of the board, so with both of them gone I figured I would be able to see a few more hands because AG is all over the place and unpredictable, so you have to deal with him on a hand by hand basis.
I am big blind at $400 and I am dealt K J, not a bad starting hand and Brian raises the pot to $1000, and everyone else folds and it comes to me. This is where I always screw myself in tournaments 1 mistake kills all the good I may have done up until that point like that time I raised AG at Derby trying to steal the blinds and he came back over the top. Well me not thinking the hand through and for some reason being a bit defensive of my blinds, re-raises him and put him all-in he calls and flips over AK, the funny thing I suspected that's what he has, Brian is a guy that places tight to the vest until he gets paint then he hopes the flop is favorable or he just goes all-in. I knew this, I had information available to me and I didn't use it, and of course I didn't catch a J and I was eliminated. Bad play on my part, and that's my biggest problem I have 1 lapse where I ignore all logic and warning signs and I lose all my chips or most of them.
AG went on to win, he beat Sue in a long heads up match, I hope the guy does well at the WSOP that will hammer home the fact that anyone can truly make it if you put in the work.
We played another tournament afterwards, and The Gimp came in second to pass me in points, he always does well in the big tournaments. How I was eliminated from this one, is kind of crazy I was dealt QQ, Ken was acting before me and he goes all in, I call then The Bat calls right behind me I flip over my ladies and The Bat flips over AK, Ken flips over K 10 I am feeling good because they both have a king with means they are sharing outs, well 2 kings come to give both of them a set of kings, and I end up dealing the rest of the night.
After watching the semi-pro play, I am convinced of a few things:
* I don't think he's better than AG
* I have to give him respect though he made it to the WPT and placed that says a lot
* Bluffing only works if you identify the players at your table
Seriously I don't think he realized the amount of loose aggresive players like Jackal and Jackal Jr., The Bat, and The Gimp you will have a hard time bluffing them out of a pot most of the time, and he tried to and they busted him. He is a solid player, but I wonder how good he is at reading players. It's hard to rate someones game after only playing 2 games with them, these are just preliminary observances.
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
No comments:
Post a Comment