More to come once I prepare the screen caps of some key hands.
Okay, here we go. As one would expect, we have a pretty tough lineup of players. I'm pretty pleased to have Fuel, Astin and Mitch to my right. My first hand of the night and I raise the almighty jackace in EP but get three callers. I decide against making a continuation bet on the flop and Chad takes it down using his positional advantage as a nice weapon.

I stick to my plan of opening with suited connectors early in the tournament in hopes of hitting big hands to accumulate chips. Sadly, I don't really get a lot of action here but a 300 chip pot here and there is welcome.

I three-bet Fuel with AdKd out of the small blind but get no action.
I check-raise with second pair in a limped pot and am able to take it down for another nice little pot as I steadily grow my chip stack up.

Then, the fireworks really sparkled as a big pot fountained into being:

Now armed with a big stack, I resolve not to spew chips but to throw my weight around only in situations where I can sell a plausible story, like here where I opened for a raise with pocket tens and get a call from Magician on the button along with one hitchhiker in early position.

So I put in a solid check-raise on the flop and take down another nice pot. That move has worked out well so far as people seem to be able to fold medium-strength hands so far in the ToC.
Then I get involved in a fairly big pot with the tricky Fuel, who is capable of playing any two cards at any time. He opened with a standard 3x BB raise to 150, I popped it up to 385 with 99. He called and we see a hammer flop! He check-raises my continuation bet to 1320 and I reluctantly call, with the sinking realization that I'm probably up against trip sevens or an overpair.

Fuel jams the turn for nearly 3400 more and I have no choice but to fold.
Then we get to the hand of the tournament for me. This is a sticky situation where I have to critique the inability of most bloggers to ever fold an overpair to the board. I mean, they never ever will do it. Even with an 18K trip for two to Australia on the line!
Now, I'm sure huntsvegas is a very nice person. But he was playing so squeaky tight that he was telegraphing his premium hands with a neon sign, so after I opened with 5h7h for a raise (again part of my strategy early on in the tournament, especially since I still had a lot of chips), I called his re-raise to see a flop. I already had in mind that I wasn't giving up on this pot easily. I put him on a narrow range of premium hands: 99+, AQs+.
The flop comes down a scary J65, all spades. I evaluate for a few moments: okay, I've got third pair. There's no way I'm good here, but I can still plausibly represent having outflopped 99+ or AK. After all, I opened, I called a re-raise out of position, and I've only shown down monster hands so far; ergo, I have a good table image to run a bluff. So I let the 15 second warning flash, and I check with the intention of check-raising. Unfortunately, it's checked behind me.
The turn is the Jh, pairing the board. Frankly, that's a great card for me. So I bet out 580, just under half-pot, trying to make it look like an extraction bet. I get a fairly quick call.
The river is a blank, the 7c. Another good card for me. So I fire a second shell of 1180. Our villain goes in the tank for the full 30 seconds of extra time, and eventually finds a call with ...

So I lose a big pot and am scrambling regain my footing.
More in the next installment to follow.
Comments are especially welcome on that last hand.
2 comments:
i haven't learned how to lay aces down yet. you all were raising so many hands i meant to play squeaky tight anyways... i got paid back for my bad play :) look forward to playing with you again.
Def an interesting hand. I'm off to Mexico for a week and will give it some thought and post my comments when I get back.
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