O-Poker

I am finally slowing down a little at work (of course slowing down is all relative), so I have a little time to write up a tourney report on how I won my seat to the WSOP.

I am soooooo excited about playing in the Main Event. It hasn't really hit me yet. This will be the 2nd big buy-in tourney that I have played. The first one was the Ultimatebet.com Aruba WPT event.

Last year, a few of us went out to Vegas at the beginning of the WSOP. I took $5,000 out there with me and had plans to play the $2K PLHE event. I didn't play in the event because one of the guys talked me out of it. I bought into his speech about how it was a big buy-in relative to my bankroll and how the odds of cashing were slim because of the large field. Afterwards, I regretted not playing in the event. Instead, I played a $500 MTT at the Bellagio and wound of getting $5,000 in a deal amongst the final six players. (So, not all bad.)

(I saved a few of the hand histories on www.pokerhand.org but I can't access them right now because it looks like they let their site registration lapse. I'll try to go from memory on the HHs)

I have had a crazy month between being extremely busy at work and home. I worked late a few nights last week and worked on Sunday. Monday night, I knew I was going to be working late and around 6:30 PM I decided to take a break and play a $150+$10 SNG Satellite on Full Tilt Poker to their Monday night 9 PM $1K WSOP Super Satellite. The SNG paid entry into the Super Sat and around $280 for 2nd.

I was playing super-tight in the early stages on the SNG and paying close attention to how the other players at the table were playing - suprisingly a few of them seemed like very weak players. After a few orbits the following hand came up:

Key Hand 1 - Blinds 30/60. I was dealt 66 in the BB. There was a small preflop raise and two callers. I called and the flop came J66. I was first to act and checked. The next guy went all-in with QQ. The guy after him (guy still had avg stack) thinks and calls the all in with 88. The next guy folds and I get an easy triple up.

I took control of the SNG from there on out with the big stack knowing that no one wanted to bust out before 2nd. When we were heads up, I had a slight chip lead. My opponent was not much of a heads up player. He would min bet on the flop every time he missed and bet big every time he hit. I slowly grinded him down and won my entry into the Monday night 9 PM $1K Super.

The $1K super sat had 73 entries paying a $12,000 WSOP package for 1-6 and $1,000 for 7th.

I decided that I wasn't going to play scared in the $1K Super Sat and was going to try and pick on the scared money in the tourney. This didn't work out so well when I flopped 2nd pair and thought I could bet another guy off his hand. He actually called me down with 2 pair and just like that my starting stack of 3,000 had dwindled down to around 2,000.

Key Hand 2 - Not much happened for the next 15-20 minutes. Blinds were 30/60. I was down to 1,800 chips (60 out of 61 players remaining) when I was dealt QQ UTG. The table had gotten a little more aggressive - every preflop limp was getting raised. I limp, everyone player at the table called. The small blind raised to 150. He had been playing very loose and raising some questionable hands. I decided that I wanted the pot right there and raised to 500. Everyone folded and the SB called. The flop came down with all low cards. SB checked and I went all-in. He insta-called with 77 and I was up to around 3,900 chips.

I didn't play many big pots for a while. I built my stack up some by calling some players that looked like they were trying to steal pre-flop and then betting out on the flop if it came all low cards. I was also stealing the blinds of a few players that were playing very very tight.

Key Hand 3 - I had built up an above average stack and raised preflop with KQ. A very tight player with a stack about half the size of mine thought for a few minutes and then called. I was guessing he had a mid-pair, AK, or AQ. The guy was pretty tight and would have raised pre-flop with AA, KK, or QQ. Either way I knew that I was behind preflop and was giving up the pot to any flop that I didn't hit. The worst possible flop for me happened - 10JQ with two diamonds. I had his hand range as AK, AQ, mid-pair. The pot was a little less than twice his stack and he was folding any mid-pair and probably AQ (the guy was tight) to my all-in bet. The only other option was to check-fold to his all-in which wasn't really option based on the size of the pot. I decided to put the decision on him. I went all in (mainly because of the size of the pot relative to his stack and figuring I still had outs if he called) and he used up most of his time before he called with Pocket 10s. The turn gave me a flush draw. I missed my flush draw and my straight draw and I was suddenly the short stack again at around 2,500.

Key Hand 4 (Luckbox suckout hand) - I had the two chip leaders to my right. Both of them had been raising my blinds every time. The chip leader (CL) was very loose and didn't seem to have much concept of position and was following every pre-flop bet with big continuation bets then shutting down if he met resistance. He was betting 9 out of 10 hands when the pot had not been bet into yet preflop. I had noticed that he made very big preflop bets when he had a hand and smaller bets with weak hands since the guy that was 2nd in chips was on his left. I was dealt Q9s in the BB. My stack was dwindling. I don't remember my exact stack size - I think it was around 2,800 and the blinds were getting high. CL raised around 2x BB preflop. I called with the intention of going all in on the flop if it wasn't scary. The flop came 8Jlowcard (3 maybe). I went all-in with my gutshot and CL insta-called with 89o. (That didn't work out as planned.) The turn brought a lovely 10 and I doubled up to about an average stack size.

Key Hand 5 - There were a lot of ups and downs for a while, but nothing very memorable until we had about 16-17 players remaining. I had 13k chips and the blinds were pretty high. CL raises big preflop. The guy to his left (with around 14k) goes all-in. I look down at KK and call. CL folds. My KK holds up against AQ and I am top 5 in chips.

Key Hand 6 (Hand that really won the seat for me) - CL hadn't let up on the preflop raising. I was dealt A7 in the SB and CL made his standard button raise. I had a big stack and decided to call his raise with the intention of check-raising him on almost any flop. (The blinds were high but still managable with my stack. If I had to fold after the C/R, then I would still be in about the same shape) The flop came A,lowcard, lowcard. Pretty scary for my hand, if this happens to be the time that CL picks up a big hand. I checked the flop. CL bet. His bet screamed that he was trying to buy the pot. I called and wanted to see what he did on the turn. Turn was another low card. I checked, CL checked (looked to me like he was giving up). River was a low card and I went all-in into a very big pot. I only had a few less chips than CL and knew he didn't have an ace. CL folded and I was now the chip leader with 12-13 players left.

I think that was the hand that allowed me to win my seat. I was a chip leader and was able to build my stack by picking on the small stacks.

Key Hand 7 (First hand of the 9 handed final table) - I was dealt AA in the cutoff the 1st hand of the final table. I was chipleader and the blinds were high. A big stack made a 3xBB raise and I decided not to try to get fancy. I went all-in and everyone folded. I didn't show my hand. I think this set the tone for the other players at the table - I had chips and wasn't scared to put all of them in the middle. They didn't know I had AA.

We were 7 handed forever until finally the short stack got knocked out. Woooooohooooo!!! Sorry short stack - you did get the bubble prize of $1,000 though.

I may have a few of the hand histories a little fuzzy but they should be close. If pokerhand.org gets their site back up, I will post the links to the hands.

I am glad I won my seat on Full Tilt. They seem to know how to treat players that win on their site. The best part about the win is how everything came together. I didn't plan on playing in the WSOP sat on Monday. I was just taking a break from work and everything fell into place. On April 24, I wrote a post titled I want to Play in the WSOP. I listed what I thought were the best ways to win a seat to the WSOP - 1st on my list was the FTP $1K super sat. I listed one of the pros to winning on FTP as "will probably be treated 1st class if win through them" and I truely believe I will.

Thanks for all the congratulatory comments on my last post.

See you all in Vegas,

cmitch