Mookie final table recap, redux

6th place finish this time, still no ToC seat. More close but no cigar shenanigans. I lost several consecutive confrontations late, and folded a lot later on as I went completely dry on good hands, and was forced to play short-stacked at the final table, as my top-3 stack with 3 tables left slowly dwindled to 7/9. I misplayed my bustout hand in a blind-on-blind battle when I had a clear 3bet shove; instead I got fancy and decided to play JdTd in position to a flop. Unfortunately, villain's Qs4s outflopped me and we got all the money in on the turn on a JQ5K board, and I bricked.

#1 - The river min-raise for value



#2 - Trapping a dangerous opponent without overplaying TPTK



#3 - Getting lucky; also missed a value bet



Then some hands vs. the Doc ...

#4 - Turning the second nuts



#5 - Pot Control; Doc said he had a ten here



#6 - Four-flushing again, but this time I was best the whole way



#7 - Filling up in a 3-way spot



Villain #3 had 85.

#8 - Flopping the nuts in a re-raised pot; I was praying opponent had a big pair they couldn't get away from



Sadly from here on out I was completely card dead and my top-3 stack dwindled and dwindled. I then lost a big race vs. deuces, of all things,

#9 - 22 holds



and then faced this donktastic overshove with no fold equity (same opponent again). JTo held ... villain's perceptiveness of hand ranges was sorely lacking, but I don't expect many players to note how tightly I was playing preflop ...

#10 - J-high is gold preflop



Finally I make a mistake in a blind vs. blind battle and bust out in sixth.

#11 - Why didn't I shove preflop? Raise or fold!

Horsing around

Tonight is another BBT4 event, the Skills Game - HORSE. I'll take some prop bets on this event, so hit me up on IM or via e-mail.

I'll also be playing the 4K HORSE again, and I would love to pull off a double win.

Of course, this probably means I'll get donked out early in both.

Edit: yep, donked out shamefully early in Skills Game. Glad I didn't book more action, heh.

Edit: epic card death in 4K beyond all belief and I still outlasted more than half the field.

Ho-hum, another day, another ToC seat misfire

Short version: I was massive chipleader for nearly all of the second half of the Mookie. I got a fortunate double-up with AQ vs. KK when the poker gods rewarded me for overplaying AQ preflop; my pairs were holding up vs. slightly lower pairs; and I was dodging trouble and making some big stack calls to bust players left and right. By the time we were down to six players left I had 106K in chips; second place stack was about 60K ... but I managed to implode, busting out in fifth place. Playing to win came back to haunt me.

1) I go to the well one too many times with T8s ("the Mookie") and flop bottom two pair in a re-raised pot (I opened and was re-raised another 4 bbs by the small blind). Jordan leads out having flopped top set, I shove, he insta-calls and I relinquish chip lead when I lose the massive 110K-ish pot which would have had me home and cooled out with more than half the chips in play with five players left. Instead, I swap positions with Jordan, who went on to win the tournament, and fell to second place with approximately 60K. Given my chip lead I think this was a defensible call in position with the implied odds and the stack sizes involved (100K and 50-ishK respectively), but hitting two pair here proved disastrous. I was able to invest less than 10% of my stack preflop to call the re-raise and I hit my hand hard enough to continue. Since I put Jordan's re-raising range there at a pretty "honest" top 5-10% of hands, I figured the implied odds were sufficient to see a flop in position.

2) I stabilize and am narrowly in third place behind cardgrrl, who has aggressively been picking on my big blind when it's folded around to her. So I eventually play back at her with Q8dd. She decides she wants to play acey-deucey out of position against my re-raising range. Oookay. We both check on a 9d7h2c flop. The magical 6d falls on the turn and suddenly I have OESFD with some live cards; she leads out for 10K into a ~35K pot and I instantly shove my last 35K in there and she calls. She shows up with the nightmarish A2dd for a mighty bottom pair and my flush outs are dead. Naturally the flush comes in (also completing my straight) and IGH in 5th place. My 21 outs once turned out to be just a dozen: three queens, three eights, and six non-diamond straight outs. (The sad thing is that if a blank falls on the turn, I think I can get her off bottom pair.)


Sigh.

Will try again next week for that ToC seat I suppose.

NB. Oh, and at least I got to say DQB:

A Skills Game near-miss

First of all, congratulations to F-Train, who deservedly won his ToC seat with a dominant performance. He built up a huge stack and never relinquished the chiplead at the final table. I thought I was well-positioned to mount a serious challenge but I scuffled with my only real significant play error to fall out of a solid 50K-ish 3rd place stack at the final table and down to a three-way crowd in the basement with six players left. I then found a good spot with dead money to overshove my 25K-ish stack over the top of F-Train's raise with a hand that has good equity against his range, but my KQJ9 rundown didn't improve enough for me to survive against what unfortunately turned out to be a ragged KKxx.

Along the way I did make two impressive hands. I got paid off as much as could be expected in the former ...


... but I scared away my customer in the latter with a turn check-raise.


Last week, it was CK busting me. This week, F-Train. I cry anti-Canuck conspiracy.

With two final tables in six events played, the BBT4 is off to a profitable start, but I've still fallen short of the goal: extending my ToC streak to three.

A golden BBT opportunity

Tonight's Skills Game is Stud eight-or-better. I think it's my strongest game overall (although the cash games haven't been going all that well lately, which is simply variance at work).

I have no excuses not to improve upon my 5th place Big Game finish. I would really like to lock in a ToC seat early, since I'll be unable to play most of the BBT events in late March/early April.

This guy will be tough competition.

Edit: Waffles was right. Expect vitriolic rant.

Blogger Big Game ... a near -miss

[Edit: now see below for some hand histories]


I had fun, I was in the top five in chips at the first break and at the second break; I made the final table but went card dead for extended period of time. Stacks got short compared to the blinds once we reached the 2K/4K/500 level so I made about my fourth pure steal of the tournament and ran my 10bb stack into Hoy's AK in the blinds. I go home now in 5th place.

Hand #1 - Why You Shouldn't Min-Raise two black aces preflop



Hand #2 - A Key Double Early



Hand #3 - Getting into trouble after taking one off



Danger! I didn't suspect I was up against A3, so the turn and river were particularly nasty.

Hand #4 - Cracking QQ



The river action was a close decision. I really wanted to raise for value but decided to play it safe.

Hand #5 - Getting Donked



Hand #6 - Cracking another premium hand



Hand #7 - A Squeeze



I had decided to felt if facing a 4bet. Luckily for me, I was up against AQ and held.

Hand #8 - Gutting it out with KK on a scary board



Hand #9 - AA holds up



As soon as I saw the flop I planned the hand: I was going to check-call a flop bet and shove any blank turn. It worked out well, but there are many different ways to play this hand.

Hand #10 - A Hammer Drop



Hand #11 - The Steal Gone Wrong



Thanks for reading this far. I had another dozen hands of some interest, but decided to omit those. By being very selective preflop, only seeing 11% of flops, I was dependent on my big hands to chip up and fortunately for me I still got action on them and held up for the most part. The other way I was able to chip up, as you saw above, was calling with some speculative hands in good spots where I wasn't risking a huge percentage of my stack preflop. I was able to nail some flops and punish players who couldn't get away from big pocket pairs.