WCOOP Excitement

The biggest news is that fellow PokerStars Team Online member and old-school MTT forum member Shane “Shaniac” Schleger won the 2-7 Triple Draw WCOOP yesterday! My excitement for him was tempered only slightly when I double-checked the terms of our staking arrangement and confirmed that I had 20% of him in all of the NLHE events but 0% in the other games. As some of you may know, he was a hair’s breadth away from final tabling the 6-Max Shootout last week, which was a tournament in which I did have an interest! Oh well, he’ll just have to run deep in yet another one.

Speaking of running deep, I had two solid WCOOP finishes today, 89/1253 in the $200 NLHE Rebuy and 13/1426 in the $109 8-Game. Almost everything I did in the NLHE event would qualify as a standard, and I busted on a bit of bad luck:

PokerStars No-Limit Hold’em, 215 Tournament, 1500/3000 Blinds 375 Ante (8 handed) – PokerStars Converter Tool from FlopTurnRiver.com

SB (t91766)
BB (t466222)
UTG (t63769)
UTG+1 (t100304)
Hero (MP1) (t72475)
MP2 (t121184)
CO (t45801)
Button (t121198)

Hero’s M: 9.66

Preflop: Hero is MP1 with 7, 7
2 folds, Hero bets t6000, 4 folds, BB calls t3000

Flop: (t16500) 3, 10, 10 (2 players)

BB checks, Hero bets t7777, BB calls t7777

Turn: (t32054) K (2 players)
BB bets t13000, Hero raises to t58323 (All-In), BB calls t45323

River: (t148700) 3 (2 players, 1 all-in)

Total pot: t148700

Results:
BB had 6, K (two pair, Kings and tens).
Hero had 7, 7 (two pair, tens and sevens).
Outcome: BB won t148700

The funny part is that he nitrolled me, tanking for so long before calling my shove that I thought I was probably good.

Anyway that was that. I was much more proud of my deep finish in the 8-Game, since I’ve only recently started playing Triple Draw and am pretty inexperienced in several of those other games.

The stalling around the bubble was ridiculous. Tables were 6-handed, and at mine, I was the only person not stalling. We were literally playing 3-4 hands per game. On the plus side, I did manage to steal quite a few pots from the guys who were just trying to make the money. The really pathetic part was that they all kept stalling to make $7 payjumps even after we were in the money.

I won’t bore you with too many hands from games you probably don’t play, but here was my favorite:

PokerStars Game #67618761011: Tournament #2011090037, $100+$9 USD 8-Game (Triple Draw 2-7 Lowball Limit) – Level XLI (5000/10000) – 2011/09/16 18:42:03 MT [2011/09/16 20:42:03 ET]
Table ‘2011090037 180’ 6-max Seat #5 is the button
Seat 1: Tyren0 (105161 in chips)
Seat 2: talonchick (63178 in chips)
Seat 3: kelnel PPP (113519 in chips)
Seat 4: EDWARDHOPPER (97112 in chips)
Seat 5: boss_bobo (59451 in chips)
Seat 6: foucault82 (86315 in chips)
foucault82: posts small blind 2500
Tyren0: posts big blind 5000
*** DEALING HANDS ***
Dealt to foucault82 [Kd Qd 2d 7d 3c]
talonchick: folds
kelnel PPP: folds
EDWARDHOPPER: folds
foucault82 said, “no one has ever told me they’d like to **** me either :-(”
boss_bobo: raises 5000 to 10000
foucault82: raises 5000 to 15000
Tyren0: folds
boss_bobo: calls 5000
*** FIRST DRAW ***
foucault82: discards 2 cards [Kd Qd]
Dealt to foucault82 [2d 7d 3c] [7c 3h]
talonchick said, “haha”
boss_bobo: discards 2 cards
foucault82: bets 5000
boss_bobo: calls 5000
*** SECOND DRAW ***
foucault82: discards 2 cards [7c 3h]
Dealt to foucault82 [2d 7d 3c] [4s Kc]
boss_bobo: discards 1 card
foucault82: checks
boss_bobo: bets 10000
foucault82: calls 10000
*** THIRD DRAW ***
foucault82: discards 1 card [Kc]
Dealt to foucault82 [2d 7d 3c 4s] [7s]
boss_bobo: stands pat
foucault82: checks
boss_bobo: bets 10000
foucault82: raises 10000 to 20000
boss_bobo: folds
Uncalled bet (10000) returned to foucault82
foucault82 collected 85000 from pot
foucault82: doesn’t show hand
*** SUMMARY ***
Total pot 85000 | Rake 0
Seat 1: Tyren0 (big blind) folded before the Draw
Seat 2: talonchick folded before the Draw (didn’t bet)
Seat 3: kelnel PPP folded before the Draw (didn’t bet)
Seat 4: EDWARDHOPPER folded before the Draw (didn’t bet)
Seat 5: boss_bobo (button) folded after the 3rd Draw
Seat 6: foucault82 (small blind) collected (85000)

For those who have no idea how to read a Triple Draw hand, I successfully check-raise bluffed him on the river. I’m far from an expert, but I’ll give you my take on why this was a good spot.

First, my best guess was that Villain was a decent NLHE tournament player with minimal Triple Draw experience. For one thing, this tournament was full of them. For another, he was talking to talonchick and it seemed like she’d played with him before, which makes it unlikely that he’s some random satellite qualifier. This makes me think that he’s capable of laying down a hand and will read this check-raise for extreme strength. The only drawback is that he may not be value betting the river as thinly as a better Triple Draw player would and thus wouldn’t have as many bet-folding hands in his range.

Second, I’ve seen three of the 7s in the deck. When you repeatedly catch rags that pair you, it’s often a good spot to bluff because of the effect that this card removal has on your opponent’s hand. Given all those dead 7s, it’s very unlikely that Villain has better than an 8.

Finally, there’s some chance that Villain was snowing (ie standing pat with a weak hand to bluff the next street), but with a pair, my hand is so bad that I can’t even beat a bluff. So while I might consider calling here with a J or a Q, a pair of 7s is the very bottom of my range and therefore a good bluffing hand.

I must say, I was pretty damn proud when he folded.

I’m also proud to say that I didn’t bust on a misplayed hand, even though it was in 7-Stud, my worst game. I ended up getting it in on 5th street against SixthSense19. I held trips and he had a flush draw and an open-ended straight draw. He got there, I didn’t, and that was that. The first prize wasn’t huge for a large-field WCOOP, but I would have loved to have won a bracelet, especially in a format where I don’t have a ton of experience.

Oh well, there’s always tomorrow! After 11 hours of playing today, I start up again at 8AM with the $500 Heads Up NLHE!