Friday, June 29, 2007

Fin

I felt like I had played 2 good hours of poker last night in the RiverChasers event. Unfortunately for me, the tournament would last longer than 120 minutes.

I had dodged some bullets and avoided the land mines. I did my best to put Waffles on tilt early by stealing a pot from him. When he did a normal 3x raise from EP, I knew I would call with 9 9 in the SB. Having someone else call along with the BB was just gravy. The flop was 8 high. It checked to Waffles who c-betted 120. I made a smooth call with every intention to check-raise the turn as long as the card wasn't higher than a Q. It was a small card. I checked as did the other two. Huh? I now knew A K was no good and it was possible that the BB had absolute crap. With the river 3, I bet it out and took it down. That was the probably be the best hand I would play all night. I knew I could push him off, especially when he didn't bet the turn. Guess not betting the turn is something one learns that from $1 HU matches.


From there I chipped up a little more before losing some to a full house made on the turn. Can't recall who it was that took my chips but I thought they played the hand very well. With two Jacks on the board, the check on the turn had me thinking they may have hit their A. I was shocked to see the boat. Probably could have gotten more off of me. Hell, I even thought about popping the river bet, but decided not to be a total idiot like most of the field.

I would recover from that debacle and make my way back into the top 15. I would stay there until I hit my own tilt moment. My notes on this player told me he was an absolute goof. Wild and lucky; not bright at all. Thus, I started re-raising him a lot. If he limped, I would raise. If he raised, I would re-raise with any face cards. It was working well. Thus when he tried to raise in a blatant re-steal attempt, I had no problem insta-calling with A Qo. My read was solid as he turned over 9 4 sooooted. He promptly went runner runner flush to cripple me. Sonnoffabitch!

From there I would float aimlessly like a piece of driftwood in a river. Chipped back up but didn't see any cards that were remotely playable. That part pissed me off. I had read Miami Don's post about his Venetian score. I paid particular attention to what he did with a mini stack and how he was willing to toss it in with just about anything. I was going to follow that strategy but it is hard when everything is a 10 2, J 4, or Q 3. Especially when the pots are raised before you can act. So when I found something that was remotely nice, A 10s, I would find myself up against 10 10. Done in 15.

I had fun last night. Did my share of re-stealing of pots, made some erratic bets to confuse and was satisfied with my play. With a couple of tokens sitting around, I really need to play one of the guaranteed events on FTP. I haven't played them in a long time and had some success there. I don't know if I will be able to play the Big Game on Sunday. I should be down at Summerfest drinking and catching some good music.

No comments: