U Jelly Bro?

With my first tournament, the $320 Ante Up, not starting until 11, I had a leisurely Wednesday morning. It was a beautiful day, bright and crisp, and The Plateau, the neighborhood where my Montreal apartment is located, looked lovely as it woke up. My street is lined with trees through which trickles of early morning sun broke through. All of the houses have these strange outdoor staircases on their fronts leading up the second floor, which give the neighborhood, for me anyway, an exotic charm.

I stepped outside for a brief stroll, ready with a cheery “Bon matin!” for any of the dog-walkers or other pedestrians I passed, but none met my glance as they sped by. Finally I got a big smile from a yellow-vested crossing guard. I purchased a few staples at a small grocery store just around the corner from me and then headed home to make lunch and otherwise prepare for what I hoped would be a long session.

The first kink in my plans came while sandwich-making. With peanut butter already spread on one slice of bread, I opened my newly purchased jelly to find it coated with a thick layer of mold. My first inclination was to throw it away and go buy a new one, thinking a few dollars not worth the hassle and potential awkwardness of trying to return the item in a foreign place and language. But it was $5 (Canadian dollars, true, but those are worth something these days), and I was going to have to go to the store anyway, so I decided to stop being such a wimp. It wouldn’t really be such a complicated transaction once the employee saw the inside of this jelly jar. There was no time for that now, though, so I ate a plain peanut butter sandwich and sat down eagerly for the Ante Up tournament.

I had my usual fun in the tournament, overlimp-reraising and such:

PokerStars No-Limit Hold’em, 320 Tournament, 5/5 Blinds 60 Ante (9 handed) – PokerStars Converter Tool from FlopTurnRiver.com

CO (t2392)
Button (t4555)
SB (t4117)
BB (t12572)
UTG (t13597)
UTG+1 (t5501)
Hero (MP1) (t10769)
MP2 (t7873)
MP3 (t9750)

Hero’s M: 19.58

Preflop: Hero is MP1 with 5♥, 6♥

UTG calls t5, UTG+1 calls t5, Hero calls t5, 1 fold, MP3 calls t5, CO calls t5, Button calls t5, SB bets t195, 1 fold, UTG calls t190, 1 fold, Hero raises to t777, 3 folds, SB calls t582, 1 fold

Flop: (t2314) Q♠, 8♥, 9♠ (2 players)
SB checks, Hero bets t888, 1 fold

Total pot: t2314

Results:
Hero didn’t show 5♥, 6♥.
Outcome: Hero won t2314

It’s hard to tell from the hand history, but there was an ante of 60 here, so SB’s raise was pretty small and consequently weak. Because the BB is just 5, I can and do limp all sorts of hands even with other limpers in front of me, so it’s not at all implausible that I could show up with, if not a monster, at least something a lot better than what SB has. In other words, he can’t just dismiss this as “No one overlimps good hands” as he could in a regular tournament.

The big problem for me was that I had an MTT superhero with a reputation for playing extremely LAGgy sitting two seats to my left. In a game like Ante Up, a good player can really play a ton of hands, and this guy was taking full advantage. I needed to combat that with a re-bluff timed to maximize the amount of weak money he’d put into the pot. Turning the flush draw was just the icing on the cake – the money was going in on the almost any turn:

PokerStars No-Limit Hold’em, 320 Tournament, 5/5 Blinds 60 Ante (9 handed) – PokerStars Converter Tool from FlopTurnRiver.com

UTG (t5585)
UTG+1 (t4760)
MP1 (t3575)
MP2 (t6302)
MP3 (t14755)
CO (t5999)
Hero (Button) (t7379)
SB (t3172)
BB (t11507)

Hero’s M: 13.42

Preflop: Hero is Button with 9♠, J♠
UTG calls t5, 5 folds, Hero bets t222, 1 fold, BB raises to t666, 1 fold, Hero calls t444

Flop: (t1882) K♥, 10♥, 3♠ (2 players)
BB bets t941, Hero calls t941

Turn: (t3764) K♠ (2 players)
BB bets t1700, Hero raises to t5712 (All-In), 1 fold

Total pot: t7164

Results:
Hero didn’t show 9♠, J♠.
Outcome: Hero won t7164

Things took a turn for the worse when I restole ATs into AKo, lost top pair all in on the flop to a bare flush draw, and then lost a flip for the rest of my chips. Quel dommage.

I drew a bye in the first round of the $215 heads up, and about an hour into the tournament, only about 10% of the Round 1 matches were finished. A notification on my screen informed me in no uncertain terms that this was a shootout tournament and the next round would start when all current matches were completed. I stepped into the other room to read.

Twenty minutes later I walked past my computer and was started to see a heads up match underway. Apparently my Round 2 started as soon as my opponent was determined, NOT after all other matches were finished as the pop-up claimed, and my opponent had merrily stolen 40% of my starting chips. I hung in there for a bit but went bust flopping trips vs trips with a better kicker. C’est la vie.

My consolation prize was the remainder of a beautiful afternoon. I took the Kindle down to a nearby park for a bit, then took that jelly back to the grocery store.

On previous occasions in Montreal, the French Canadians have always insulted my French by switching to English after hearing me say no more than, “Bonjour.” My French certainly hasn’t gotten any better since then, but after my time in Europe, I’m a lot more comfortable muddling my way through a transaction in a foreign language I speak poorly. Perhaps that led me to speak more confidently, or maybe the clerk wasn’t comfortable in English (doubtful, given her age), but she continued to speak to me in French after I explained that <I bought this here this morning, and when I opened it, it looked like this>, here opening the lid for her to see. I’d actually looked up the French word for “mold”, but one of the words Google Translate gave me looked hard to pronounce, and the other was also the word for “mussels”, which they are very serious about their mussels in Montreal so better not to go there I thought.

I didn’t understand much of what she said back to me, but I’d made myself understood, that was plain from the look of disgust on her face. I headed home with a fresh jar of jelly and a skip in my step.