After spending more than enough money to buy in directly, I finally won a freaking main event seat in one of the last $650 satellites Stars will be running. Counting the spending money and sponsorship deal that comes with the package, I think that I ended up breaking even on satellites almost to the dollar.
It wasn’t a particularly interesting tournament, but I did make one tight fold fairly early on. I raised QQ UTG, and the BB min-re-raised me. I didn’t have quite the right odds to chase a set, but I called anyway and then folded when he bet half his stack on a ragged flop. Obviously I’m not 100% sure I was beat, and the guy did turn out to be a pretty aggressive player, but I still have my doubts about just how wide his range is for min-re-raising an UTG raise.
I also found myself folding both AK and KK preflop much later in the tournament, but those were actually trivially easy situations. In both cases I had a safe stack, we were one player away from the bubble, and there was a massive chipleader open shoving every hand. There was just no reason to get involved, even with AA.
Speaking of which, here was an interesting spot that I saw at another table on the bubble:
Poker Stars, $615 + $35 NL Hold’em Tournament, 3,500/7,000 Blinds, 9 Players
LeggoPoker.com – Hand History Converter
UTG: 42,162
UTG+1: 52,824
UTG+2: 56,370
MP1: 88,111
MP2: 84,791
CO: 12,672
BTN: 169,828
SB: 18,412
BB: 59,926
Pre-Flop: (16,800)
5 folds, CO raises to 11,972 and is All-In, BTN calls 11,972, SB folds, BB calls 4,972
Flop: (45,716) T
8
8 (3 Players – 1 is All-In)
BB checks, BTN checks
Turn: (45,716) 6
(3 Players – 1 is All-In)
BB checks, BTN checks
River: (45,716) T
(3 Players – 1 is All-In)
BB checks, BTN checks
Results: 45,716 Pot
CO showed A A (two pair, Aces and Tens) and WON 22,858 (+10,186 NET)
BTN mucked and LOST (-12,672 NET)
BB showed A A (two pair, Aces and Tens) and WON 22,858 (+10,186 NET)
It’s to the BB’s credit that he played this correctly. I think a lot of people would have reshoved with AA there, but he’s much better guaranteeing that the BTN goes to showdown and increasing the odds of the short stack getting eliminated.
Feels good to win this, because now I don’t have to waste time and effort booking a hotel, finding someone to pay me to wear their clothing, etc. Just nice to have all that stuff taken care of.
Congrats!
Thanks, and thanks for the lucky $W! Or maybe I just got good karma for buying it at face value?
Awesome, buddy! Rooting for a third cash for you.
Congrats, Andrew. That’s great news.
I watched the first few episodes of your Poker Savvy videos. I really liked the first one — was a great introduction.
Does Pokersavvy let you display pokertracker stats on your instructional videos? It would be an interesting way to show how your reads affect your lines.
(This is Joe)
Thanks Joe. Don’t know if you’ve seen any of the turn/river videos, but I started using contrived hands anyway- examples that I made up to illustrate the point. I’ll probably do some “live action” examples at some point, though, and use PT stats when I do. Thanks for the suggestion.