Last year, or possibly the year before that...I heard the Rivers casino was hosting what they called The Pittsburgh Poker Open. This is a series of tournaments where they're using a points system, they have trophies for every event and a "MAIN EVENT" with an $1100 buy-in. Well, I swore that I would play in these someday and that day was Monday night. Monday night's tournament was a $100+$25 buy-in NLHE tournament. Blinds are 20 minutes, however they go up pretty steady, giving a decent amount of play. You start with 15K in chips and there's no dealer add-on.
Well, I was a little weary of playing on a Monday because I thought there might be no players, however, there ended up being 88 entries. This doesn’t mean there were 88 players(I think it was more like 70), however, because nowhere you look says that the Pittsburgh poker open tournaments are re-entries, unless you look at 1 of 2 posters in the poker room… Oh well, re-entries aren’t playing like rebuys, at least that I’ve seen so far. Again, Re-entry is buying in again and getting an already sitting stack that’s been blinded down. The re-entry period is till level 7, so that’s about 2 hours 20 minutes in. Again, I think it sounds worse than it is in actuality, at level 7 you probably have 10 bets or less, not worth 125 buy-in... Anyway, I started off playing well, I had a tournament pro to my right(I bought in behind him and his buddy talking about international poker rooms and they both had a huge roll they were playing from), however, he wasn’t very active and we pretty much stayed away from each other, almost taking turns opening and c-betting it down. He was able to triple up and I was worried he’d start playing big-stack bully but he actually seemed to play a little tighter and more timidly against me. I was pretty glad to be to his left, however, just so that when he folded I was able to raise and I didn’t have to worry about him playing against me. I was up to about 18K and a few flush draws that missed put me down to 15K(starting stack) when 200-400, Construction Bill(that’s what they called him) opens to 1200 utg and gets a caller, I look down at pocket Aces and make it 2800 and the guy 2 to my left shoves for 9 more. Folds around to me and I call, of course. Aces vs Kings and they hold up, actually flopping an Ace was really nice. Next hand folds to me in middle position I raise it up with KQ of hearts to 1k and get 3 callers, flop is 10d-Jd-A, I figured this probably hit one of these guys ranges and there’s too many draws to let anyone get free cards. I also thought check-raising seemed too obvious and I was c-betting most hands I raised pre-flop with. So I put out 2300, 1st caller shoves for like 6K, next guy shoves for 18K, 3rd guy folds and I call, figuring I’m going to have to fade a draw or more. First guy has AJ and flopped top 2, next guy has Ad-6d for a pair and a flush draw. Turn is a K, river is a 6 and just like that I’m up to about 60K in 2 hands! Soon after players started dropping like flies, we went from 70 players to 40 pretty quickly. I got my stack to about 85K at one point. I had a few unlucky hands after that though, but was able to stay at a steady 60K picking a few spots and raising against limping nits when I could. I was moved around a few times, which is sometimes tough because you don’t know the table dynamic right away. Plus I was liking my current table a bunch! The last level before break 2 I was put at table 1, seat 4. It was a nice table, “Construction Bill” was there, lots of guys talking about “PA Poker” were there…some other familiar faces from the other tables. There was this really older gentleman that had a strange accent and a TON of bling…a guy told me at break he owned a few clubs and was one of the richest people in the burgh…that said, this guy was the slowest player imaginable… It was really hard not to tilt having the dealer have to tell him every time to put in his ante and how much and explain so much to him… A redeeming factor was that this guy was a huge foul-mouth, everything was you mother%#%er this and these mother%#$ing cards and that…all with a smile, mind you… I thought he was hurting my chances by taking so long and making every hand really long, at least the ones he was playing in. One hand he limped and 2 more limpers joined and I had pocket 10s so I raised 2.8x and he called. Flop was Q-9-Q, he checked and I bet 4.5x, he called. K on the turn and he bet so I folded.
I really felt like raising him there, it just seemed like he was repping a Q and it’s just hard to flop trips, however, he definitely didn’t seem to be playing hi-level poker from what I saw, so I figured he wouldn’t bluff all that much, plus all I had was a gut-shot at that point. I think he was getting smacked with the deck a few times.
Sitting at that table, we went from 25 to 14 players in 1 level, 2000-4000, 300 ante. At this point I felt like I should be able to make the final table…Then I was moved to the other table, and now I felt like we were a little handy-capped because we were flying much faster through hands than I was prior, meaning blinds and antes were eating us a lot faster...although the other way to look at it was that I had more opportunity to accumulate more chips at this table prior to the final. I had 60K, blinds are 2500-5000, 500 ante I was able to “survive” winning a few hands preflop uncontested. The guy to my right appeared to be playing to hopefully make the money, and in doing so, was folding even to the point he gave me 2 walks and I once raised on his limp and he folded. He went from almost my stack size 60-ish to 15K just folding his way to the money, hopefully…then he was able to double up with KQ vs A-9, now he’s sitting on 28K. We lost 2 in that level and so now we’re sitting on 12 players, 6 at each table.
3000-6000, 500 ante. I’ve got 53K and just gotten through the BB where short-stack folded to me again. Now he’s the button and it folds to him, he shoves for 28K. I look down at pocket 9s and prior to looking I wanted to just about fold anything, save monsters…well 9s at a 6-handed table where almost everyone’s got about 10 bets give or take I figured I had 2 options, shove or fold. I didn’t feel like calling because it gives the big stack to my left(BB) the option to see a flop cheaper, and I’ll be forced to hopefully check it down or fold to most boards if he bets at any point and now I’ve just chopped my stack in half by calling. I’ll have to shove or fold in –EV situations on just about any flop unless we’d both hit the board. I went with shoving my 58K as the better option. (Fortunately?), Big stack calls quickly and I'm scared until he flips over pocket 3s, which isn’t even in what I thought his calling range in this spot would be, I’m pretty happy with it, though. Even if I lose the flip with short-stack, I will still come out slightly over what I started with (58-28=30*2=60) so even if I lose to k-10, 80% of the time I’m coming out slightly over even. 20% of the time I’m the bubble, and something like 40% of the time I’ll be sitting on a stack of 144K heading into the final table… I think it’s probably very difficult to find as good a spot as this at this point in the tournament, right?
Well, the flop was Q-10-5, giving the short-stack his race-win, however, like I said I was in good shape to come out a little over exactly even, then the turn was a 3 and I couldn’t pull a miracle out of my a$, the river was another 10, giving the entire pot to Big stack 3s… I think 3s make a mistake calling 2 all-ins, however, I can’t complain when someone tries to give me their chips, right?
In the end I probably knocked out 6 players, accumulated at the height of my stack 85K-ish and instead of folding to the money, I feel like I went for a decent shot at winning...and got really, really unlucky...
Playing again tomorrow night, I wonder if there’ll be more or less entries? They're also playing satelites for the main at 100+25 re-entry, starting with 5000 chips... I hope they have close to the same amount of entries even with the satellites.
Wish me luck! At least 9s over 3s luck!
FYI: Each event has it’s own “trophy”….I’d really like to get my name on “any” trophy this century…
No comments:
Post a Comment