First event down. Busted around 230/554 about 5 minutes from the end of level 11 (blinds 300/600/75), jamming 8k from the CO with A4 into the BBs AQ.
Real up and down tournament. Whilst the players are mostly not too hot some of the play can only be described as "random". Whilst this proved a pain in the ass I"d still play against this lot all day. 2.5x opens, position, analysing flop texture, and any post-flop betting of less than 80% pot doesn"t seem to have reached this part of the world, so 10k chips is feeling quite shallow in these comps as the pots are escalating very quickly.
As with the first tournament I played I was surrounded by the more aggro players with the tighter, weaker players nowhere where I could exercise significant bullying tactics.
Lost a 9k pot early on when AQs binked a flush vs my KK in a 3bet pot. Paid the guy off on the river which dropped me to 6k early on. At the time I was kicking myself over making the call, but seeing his subsequent play it probably wasn"t that bad (I had the K of the suit too).
Get the chips back when same villains raises pre, the checks flop before weak leading turn on a
Ts
board. Calls my raise and value bet on river
.
Later call raise in position with 8s6s, 3 way pot, original raiser checks to me and I fire all 3 streets on
Tc
board. Don"t like my river bet, felt at the time I might fold out some hands beating me - but if he"s called 2 streets he"ll probably hero me a 3rd time. This was indeed the case, but he heroed me with AKo - interesting.
After these adventures I hit the first break with 11.2k, shade above the average.
4bet AKs vs a LAG, got a fold. Raised 6d5d, got 3 calls, flopped middle pair and rivered trips vs one of the random fish in a small pot. Got up to 16.3k.
Drop down to 12k over the next couple of hours. The usual stuff that we"ve all experienced - every time you have Ax the board comes 678, every time you have T9 it comes AQQ etc etc - and they ALWAYS have it.
One such occasion I raise UTG and fire all 3 streets with 77 on a AJ868 board with all draws missing. Villain tank calls AJ on river after deciding not to raise at any point - entices me to fire the overbet 3rd barrel vs what I expect to be a weaker Ace I can get him to lay down.
Contrary to the fact all the above is me playing a shedload of big pots and binking rivers , or overbet bluffing - I don"t like playing this way (though I won"t shy away from big moves)! I like to chip away in position at the smaller pots, trusting position and generally winning them before I have to bink the river. I"m firing one barrel usually, two if the board texture tells me I should, and was not having a great deal of success with it. Either my opponents are hanging on grimly with random cards or flopping a shedload of hands whereas I wasn"t flopping a great deal
Dropped as low as 1,500, but with a few well timed 3bet shoves, a bit of luck (99 v KK AIPF, board KJTQA) and winning a couple of races I built up to 22k. Actually started hitting a couple of flops and winning those smallish pots in position - thought "Great, time to kick it up and build a stack now I have one and the average had dropped to ~30-35BBs".
Due to LAGish shorties on my left, was mostly only opening hands that were going to call 3-bet shoves. Cue being jammed on by dominating hands. 55 v 88, KQs v AQo in button/cut-off v blind scenarios before the A4 v AQ took me out a while later.
Bitty tournament, little bit frustrated I was pegged back immediately on the couple of occasions I picked up an above average stack. Still made it past halfway without ever getting going, which is something I guess.
6-max next on Wednesday, again a 5pm GMT kickoff. If the net in the tournament area allows I will keep the Twitter updates flowing.
