It was a good table draw but a bad tournament for me. The only player I recognized from the start was Jason Strasser, who is of course very very good but was thankfully seated two to my right. Everyone else was solid enough but not spectacular.
The table was active from the very start, and I was taking a lot of flops in position only to end up folding when I whiffed entirely. I oscillated right around the starting 20K for the first 2-3 hours, which was fine given how slow the structure was.
Eventually Duy Le, who’s an occasional player in the mid-high stakes cash games, was moved to my immediate left. He was LAGtarding it up, which cramped my style even further. Then he put a hurting on me with this little gem:
PokerStars No-Limit Hold’em, 5200 Tournament, 125/250 Blinds 30 Ante (9 handed) – Poker-Stars Converter Tool from FlopTurnRiver.com
MP2 (t15015)
MP3 (t32283)
CO (t51642)
Hero (Button) (t14820)
SB (t27944)
BB (t15288)
UTG (t10210)
UTG+1 (t42482)
MP1 (t19750)
Hero’s M: 22.98
Preflop: Hero is Button with A
, Q
6 folds, Hero bets t500, SB raises to t1350, 1 fold, Hero calls t850
Flop: (t3220) Q
, 4
, 8 (2 players)
SB bets t1234, Hero calls t1234
Turn: (t5688) J
(2 players)
SB checks, Hero checks
River: (t5688) K (2 players)
SB bets t2750, Hero calls t2750
Total pot: t11188
Results:
Hero mucked A, Q (one pair, Queens).
SB had K, 6 (one pair, Kings).
Outcome: SB won t11188
That’s the worst river card in the deck, but I definitely can’t fold vs. this player given how the hand went down. That set me up to make this nitty laydown:
PokerStars No-Limit Hold’em, 5200 Tournament, 150/300 Blinds 40 Ante (9 handed) – Poker-Stars Converter Tool from FlopTurnRiver.com
UTG (t17155)
UTG+1 (t36781)
MP1 (t50147)
Hero (MP2) (t10460)
MP3 (t40304)
CO (t16538)
Button (t11065)
SB (t45782)
BB (t11835)
Hero’s M: 12.91
Preflop: Hero is MP2 with K, A
1 fold, UTG+1 bets t800, 1 fold, Hero raises to t1999, 4 folds, BB raises to t11795 (All-In), 2 folds
Total pot: t5308
Results:
BB didn’t show
Outcome: BB won t5308
UTG is Strasser, but BB had been very very tight/cautious. Looking at it now I wish I’d called, but at the time the fold felt right. The very next hand I nitted it up again against the same guy:
PokerStars No-Limit Hold’em, 5200 Tournament, 150/300 Blinds 40 Ante (9 handed) – Poker-Stars Converter Tool from FlopTurnRiver.com
BB (t17115)
UTG (t35941)
UTG+1 (t50107)
Hero (MP1) (t8421)
MP2 (t40264)
MP3 (t16498)
CO (t11025)
Button (t45592)
SB (t15104)
Hero’s M: 10.40
Preflop: Hero is MP1 with A, Q
2 folds, Hero bets t799, 4 folds, SB raises to t1750, 2 folds
Total pot: t2258
Results:
SB didn’t show
Outcome: SB won t2258
A few orbits later, I doubled through Strasser in a kinda interesting spot:
PokerStars No-Limit Hold’em, 5200 Tournament, 200/400 Blinds 50 Ante (9 handed) – Poker-Stars Converter Tool from FlopTurnRiver.com
CO (t15335)
Button (t45916)
SB (t39647)
Hero (BB) (t5232)
UTG (t18252)
UTG+1 (t10363)
MP1 (t10251)
MP2 (t55267)
MP3 (t39804)
Hero’s M: 4.98
Preflop: Hero is BB with 4, 5
6 folds, Button bets t1000, SB calls t800, Hero calls t600
Flop: (t3450) J, 9, 5 (3 players)
SB checks, Hero bets t4182 (All-In), Button calls t4182, 1 fold
Turn: (t11814) 4 (2 players, 1 all-in)
River: (t11814) 4 (2 players, 1 all-in)
Total pot: t11814
Results:
Button had 8, 9 (two pair, nines and fours).
Hero had 4, 5 (full house, fours over fives).
Outcome: Hero won t11814
Then there was a really key double-up:
PokerStars No-Limit Hold’em, 5200 Tournament, 250/500 Blinds 60 Ante (9 handed) – Poker-Stars Converter Tool from FlopTurnRiver.com
Button (t17015)
SB (t70932)
BB (t11394)
Hero (UTG) (t14458)
UTG+1 (t23443)
MP1 (t11191)
MP2 (t12671)
MP3 (t56237)
CO (t70250)
Hero’s M: 11.21
Preflop: Hero is UTG with A, J
Hero bets t1234, 5 folds, Button calls t1234, 2 folds
Flop: (t3758) J, 2, K (2 players)
Hero bets t1669, Button raises to t5444, Hero raises to t13164 (All-In), Button calls t7720
Turn: (t30086) K (2 players, 1 all-in)
River: (t30086) 3 (2 players, 1 all-in)
Total pot: t30086
Results:
Button had 3, A (two pair, Kings and threes).
Hero had A, J (two pair, Kings and Jacks).
Outcome: Hero won t30086
Which I promptly undid with a poorly planned hand:
PokerStars No-Limit Hold’em, 5200 Tournament, 300/600 Blinds 70 Ante (9 handed) – Poker-Stars Converter Tool from FlopTurnRiver.com
MP3 (t4684)
CO (t72157)
Button (t7859)
Hero (SB) (t30851)
BB (t20163)
UTG (t12991)
UTG+1 (t11041)
MP1 (t57605)
MP2 (t70240)
Hero’s M: 20.16
Preflop: Hero is SB with Q, A
2 folds, MP1 bets t1355, MP2 calls t1355, 3 folds, Hero raises to t6666, 1 fold, MP1 calls t5311, 1 fold
Flop: (t15917) K, 10, 5 (2 players)
Hero bets t6666, MP1 raises to t50869 (All-In), Hero folds
Total pot: t29249
Results:
MP1 didn’t show
Outcome: MP1 won t29249
Villain was really loose-aggressive and didn’t lay down easily to 3-bets. I was ready to get it in pre-flop if he’d 4-bet. I only had like 24K left in my stack on the flop, and I wish I had just open shoved. It’s actually pretty hard for him to have me in bad shape, since I think AK, KK, and TT all 3-bet pre. He can have me killed with 55, KT, or maybe AT, but otherwise I’m in fighting shape against like JT. By bet-folding I lose a lot of equity against those hands not to mention the times he shoves QJ or a heart draw or something.
I ended up busting to the same player. He’d opened from middle position, the BTN called, and I shoved A7o from the BB. Villain snapped me off with ATs and held. Oh well, obviously a pretty great WCOOP for me anyway.
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Hand 1: This turn card adds an new set of draws and checking back to possibly let vill draw to a possible flush kinda sucks imo. Why did you not bet this turn? How many river cards does he have to be bluffing for this to be profitable?
On hand 2 you essentially 3b bluffed 20% of your 35 BB stack w/AKo. Seems like if you are going to be folding this to a nitty guys shove w/almost the same stack size shouldn’t you be flatting this open? Even if the nit doesn’t wake up with the hand in blinds we add deception value against a solid regular with a premium hand in position.
Hand 3: Just because he seemed nitty previously, does not mean that he can not exploit you bet/raise folding. Especially if he thinks you respect his 3bs from the blinds. I think you need to 4b here, but that is really all meta game based on if you think that this player is capable of picking up on meta-game/his image/etc.
1. Look at how wide his range is. There’s really not much reason to fear that he’s on a flush draw. In fact, he’s probably somewhat more likely to bet again when he has a good draw. I think his check is very weak and usually indicates a hand that can’t call and is quite possibly drawing dead. The risk of letting him see a free card with a range like that is not very high, and against an aggressive player, I think surely outweighed by the prospect of inducing bluffs.
2. It’s not like I was expecting a cold shove from the nittiest player at the table. I wouldn’t have folded to anyone else. Against a lot of people I would flat, but I think Strassa is too good to make many mistakes against my flatting range even from OOP.
3. Yeah, this one is definitely close, but I’d just raise-folded to him the hand before, and I think in general people aren’t too likely to get real jiggy in the same spot again. I guess that could mean he’s in there with like AJ for value though.
Hand 1 looks good. In ref to #2: How frequently is AK in your flatting range? In my experience w/Strassa he is laying down pretty much everything here except for hands that are dominating us (considering effective stack sizes)
On 1 I also meant to add there’s the possibility that he currently has air but turns a second-best hand. An A on the river would make this particularly likely, but there’s some chance that he pays off a value bet on the river with some hands that wouldn’t have called the turn.