Once again I had some rough table draws, ending up with a lot of high-stakes cash players. As I previously explained, this is bad in an FTOPS tournament for a number of reasons. One of them took me to valuetown on the first hand of the tournament:
Full Tilt Poker, NL Hold’em Tournament, 15/30 Blinds, 5 Players
LeggoPoker.com – Hand History Converter
SB: 1,500
BB: 3,000
Hero (UTG): 3,000
CO: 3,000
BTN: 3,000
Pre-Flop: (45) 9
9
dealt to Hero (UTG)
Hero raises to 90, CO folds, BTN raises to 315, 2 folds, Hero calls 225
Flop: (675) 8 T Q (2 Players)
Hero checks, BTN checks
Turn: (675) 4
(2 Players)
Hero checks, BTN bets 450, Hero calls 450
River: (1,575) Q
(2 Players)
Hero checks, BTN bets 1,250, Hero calls 1,250
Results: 4,075 Pot
Hero mucked 9 9 (two pair, Queens and Nines) and LOST (-2,015 NET)
BTN showed A T (two pair, Queens and Tens) and WON 4,075 (+2,060 NET)
I got him back a bit by stealing this pot from him:
Full Tilt Poker, NL Hold’em Tournament, 15/30 Blinds, 5 Players
LeggoPoker.com – Hand History Converter
BTN: 2,835
SB: 3,150
Hero (BB): 3,065
UTG: 2,845
CO: 4,605
Pre-Flop: (45) 7 5 dealt to Hero (BB)
UTG calls 30, CO raises to 135, BTN folds, SB calls 120, Hero calls 105, UTG calls 105
Flop: (540) 9 T 8 (4 Players)
SB checks, Hero checks, UTG checks, CO checks
Turn: (540) K (4 Players)
SB checks, Hero checks, UTG checks, CO bets 360, SB folds, Hero raises to 980, 2 folds
Results: 1,260 Pot
Hero mucked 7 5 and WON 1,260 (+765 NET)
He virtually never has more than one pair here, and I think he has nothing at all a fair amount of the time. Most importantly, I don’t think he ever expects me to be bluffing here. Plus I do have some outs if called.
I briefly got up a decent stack, but then another 25/50 NL player got seated on my immediate right. He raised from the SB, I re-raised 88 from the BB, and called his shove. He had AK and got there.