SCOOP Week 2 Update

Sorry for the lack of updates. I’ve just been playing all day every day, but I’ve decided to take today off so here’s the rundown:

Monday

I played all three of the Action Hour tournaments. For those who don’t know, these are tournaments where the blinds go up very quickly for the first hour or so, during which rebuys are permitted. After that, the blinds go back down and the tournament ends up playing very deep as a result of all the chips on the table. Combine that with the long structure on a SCOOP-H event, and this made for frankly an absurd tournament. I played for hours and busted nowhere near the money, though I did manage a shallow cash in the $50. I’m not too thrilled with my bustout from the $500:

Poker Stars $500+$30 No Limit Hold’em Tournament – t75/t150 Blinds + t20 – 6 players – http://www.handconverter.com/hands/2501934

CO: t11046 M = 32.02
BTN: t14568 M = 42.23
SB: t19535 M = 56.62
Hero (BB): t13608 M = 39.44
UTG: t26519 M = 76.87
MP: t23706 M = 68.71

Pre Flop: (t345) Hero is BB with 7s 9s
4 folds, SB calls t75, Hero raises to t450, SB calls t300

Flop: (t1020) 9h 8s 8h (2 players)
SB checks, Hero bets t510, SB raises to t1388, Hero calls t878

Turn: (t3796) 4c (2 players)
SB bets t2688, Hero raises to t11750 all in, SB calls t9062

River: (t27296) Qh (2 players – 1 is all in)

Tuesday

After 48 hours of clouds and rain, the sun finally appeared over Montreal. I took the opportunity to ride to the Marché Jean-Talon, which is just about my favorite thing to do in Montreal.

In the afternoon I played the M and H heads up events without cashing. I think I was pretty fortunate in my High matchups, in that I twice drew tournament players who didn’t seem to have a lot of heads up experience. The second match ended with me five-bet jamming AQo into his KK, which could probably be called “standard” although I really try to avoid big pre-flop pots against opponents like this who are so easily outplayed after the flop. You only only take that so far, though, and while I wouldn’t have 4-bet AQ to get it in, that doesn’t mean that I’m wrong to 3-bet it or to shove it over a 4-bet.

I also managed a shallow cash in the Super Tuesday $1000 SCOOP. As reported here, I made Day 2 with only about 20BBs. They all went in when I got AJs in the BB against a min-raise and a call, so it was a spot I felt quite good about it although the raiser had AQ and busted me.

Wednesday

I played and whiffed all three Super Knockout tournaments. I think in some spots I made a little too much allowance for the large bounties (seeing a lot of flops early) and in others not enough:

Poker Stars $1025+$1025+$50 No Limit Hold’em Tournament – t30/t60 Blinds – 9 players – http://www.handconverter.com/hands/2501938

Hero (SB): t7127 118.78 BBs
BB: t5156 85.93 BBs
UTG: t4964 82.73 BBs
UTG+1: t9403 156.72 BBs
UTG+2: t3672 61.20 BBs
MP1: t7236 120.60 BBs
MP2: t3712 61.87 BBs
CO: t1932 32.20 BBs
BTN: t9301 155.02 BBs

Pre Flop: (t90) Hero is SB with Qh Qd
3 folds, MP1 raises to t150, MP2 calls t150, 2 folds, Hero raises to t750, 1 fold, MP1 raises to t1525, 1 fold, Hero calls t775

Flop: (t3260) 8h Th 4c (2 players)
Hero checks, MP1 bets t1285, Hero folds

This was a complicated hand. I expected my squeeze to look very strong, and the original raiser was quite good, but the caller was really weak so I figured I could just blatantly build the pot with him. I took it for strength that the first player was willing to raise the weaker one out of the pot, but in retrospect because he covers me he really has a lot of incentive to get it in preflop with AK and maybe even worse than that, so I probably should have gone with this, post-flop if not pre. Trying to setmine to the 4-bet was likely the worst option.

Thursday

I love the Ante Up format, and I played all three tournaments. The fields were disappointingly small, and I took bad beats early in the L and M events, but i ended up making quite a deep run in the H. I was really happy with the adjustments I made to the format, and I think that my recent live cash game experience helped because I was much more familiar with hand reading in deep, multiway pots than was anyone else and was able to make some nice plays as a result. Unfortunately I ended up taking it too far and running a suicidal bluff into a full house, ultimately finishing 19th.

The tournaments didn’t start until 5PM, though, so I got to spend the day with Luisinho, whom some of you may recognize from the blog comments. Vegetarian chili, the best coffee in Montreal, and some of the best natas (Portuguese egg tart) in the world were a great start to the day.

Friday

I played the $10 and $100 Big Ante events. I was on the fence about playing the $1000, but it drew a small and tough-looking field and I wasn’t at my sharpest after staying up until 5AM playing the Ante Up the night before, so I passed. Nothing remarkable happened in the other two.

Saturday

I played all three six-max shootouts and made the semifinals of both the H and the M. If I’d used the same tactic as on Friday and monitored the H field closely, I probably wouldn’t have played, but unlike on Friday I was really feeling sharp and pretty roundly outplayed my first table. The second table just wasn’t winnable from my seat. I got set under set for half of my stack and then lost a flip to bust the other half.

The $200 event was much more interesting, but I’ll likely cover it in a series for Tournament Poker Edge, so I won’t get into too many details here.

Sunday

Sundays are such brutal days. The fields are just so huge that even running well for hours on end isn’t enough to guarantee success. I finished in the top 2% of the L Warmup event for less than $200 and near-bubbled the M and H Sunday Million tournaments. The big news was final tabling the Sunday $100 rebuy, ultimately finishing 4th for about $30,000. Really I just ran absurdly hot. I won’t deny that I made some good plays along the way, but in retrospect my play at the final table was embarrassing. I guess if nothing else it’s a good wake-up call that I’ve grown rusty in this regard, which when you’re playing tournaments you simply can’t afford to do.

It reminds me of a point I always scold my MTT students about, which is not being confident with heads up play. When you enter a tournament, you simply can’t afford not to play well at the final table or heads up. Even though they don’t come often, so much of your equity depends on making the most of these situations.