O-Poker

Live Poker - Hard Rock Tampa

I started off my weekend early by heading over to the Hard Rock in Tampa (about 1 1/2 hrs away) for a 4 PM super satellite to a $1k buy mtt they are running next Friday-Sunday.

The mtt is going to be the biggest tourney that the Hard Rock in Tampa has ever put on - a $1k mtt with a cap of 600 players, 10k starting chips, 1 hour levels, and spread over the course of 3 days. May not sound great compared to some tourneys, but this is pretty huge considering most of their mtts have 15-20 min levels and are geared towards finishing in a couple of hours. They have two starting days (Friday and Saturday) with 300 players each day playing down to 30 players. The final 60 players (all itm) will continue on Sunday and play until there is a winner. I am playing next Friday so that I have a day off if I make it into the money and can make it to my daughter's basketball game on Saturday.

I walked into the Hard Rock around 3:30 PM and purchased by $100 super satellite ticket. I was completely unaware that it was a rebuy until about 15 minutes later. I had looked at the mtt schedule on the Hard Rock website, saw $100 Super Satellite listed and assumed that the sat was $100 freezeout since the other rebuy tourneys on the schedule were listed as rebuys. No big deal. I figured that is just meant we could play a little deeper. It had a crazy rebuy structure. You started with 2,500 chips and could rebuy 1,000 chips for $25 if you had 2,500 or less chips. So if you went broke, you could rebuy back up to 3,000 chips for $75. There was also a $100 add-on after 1 1/2 hours (six 15 minute levels - lol) that gave you an additional 5,000 chips.

I was up and down during the rebuy period but never had to rebuy. Most of the players were clueless as to how to play a rebuy. There were several players that rebought 1,000 chips for $25 instead of 3,000 chips for $75 when they went broke. I think 3 players at my table never rebought and just left after they lost all of their chips. I am pretty sure one of them had no clue that you could rebuy even though there had been several players at our table that had already rebought.

I won't go into a ton of details, but I will say there was a lot of horrendous play. A guy directly to my right (even after the rebuy period) was over shoving all-in any time that it checked to him when he was last to act - betting 10k chips into a 1k pot. He got knocked out when he shoved with 66 on a J73 flop and was called by J2.

I got short late thanks to some untimely steals, but managed to win a few key races both with 55 against over cards. Then late I had a hand that locked up my seat. I had 15k chips and the blinds were 2k/4k no ante, I was the BB with a dead SB. I told the table that there was no reason to go after my blind since there was no SB. It folded to the button (about 40k chips) who said that we would fold to me unless he had a big hand - gotta like that. He looked at his cards and shoved telling me that he had to. The poker gods were smiling on me as I looked down and saw AA. Insta-Call!!! The button turned over A2 saying that he had to do it because he had an Ace in his hand. About 20 minutes later, we all locked up our seats and I registered for Friday.

The structure looks pretty good. I am wondering what the starting level will be on Sunday though since they are playing down to 30 players each day instead of playing the 2nd day to the same level that the first day stops.

I got my table assignment and am pretty sure that it is the last table to break which means that I should be at the same table the entire first day. I think this is going to be a huge advantage since I will be able to use any reads that I pick up without having to worry about the table breaking before I take advantage of them.

The structure (10k starting chips)

Level 1 25/50
level 2 50/100 15 minute break after this level
level 3 75/150
level 4 100/200 25ante 15 minute break after this level
level 5 200/400 50ante
level 6 300/600 75ante 15 minute break after this level (race off chips)
level 7 400/800 100ante
level 8 500/100 100ante 1 hour dinner break after this level
level 9 600/1200 200ante
level 10 800/1600 300ante 15 minute break
level 11 1000/2000 400ante
level 12 1500/3000 500ante
level 13 2k/4k 500ante
level 14 3k/6k 1k ante 15 minute break (race off chips)
level 15 4k/8k 1k ante
level 16 5k/10k 2k ante 15 minute break
level 17 8k/16k 2k ante
level 18 10k/20k 3k ante 15 minute break
level 19 15k/30k 4k ante (race off chips)
level 20 20k/40k 5k ante 1 hour dinner break
level 21 30k/60k 5k ante
level 22 40k/80k 10k ante 15 minute break
level 23 60k/120k 15k ante
level 24 75k/150k 25k ante


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MTTs are torture

I decided to play a few mtts on Saturday night for a little practice. It didn't take long before I remembered why I don't play a ton of mtts. The beats can be brutal, especially late. I made a deep run in the 50/50 and was sitting in the top 10 in chips for most of the tourney. I wound up busting out in 32nd when my QQ was no match for 66 aipf. Man, mtts can be frustrating.

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Crazy Cash Game Weekend

Nothing went right on Friday night. I had flopped straights losing to flopped sets when they filled up on the turn. I lost 3 or 4 pots to half stacks when I either had a dominating hand (KK vs. 77) or was racing (AK vs. 55). I read a guy completely wrong and shoved into the nuts once. I lost a 150 BB+ deep stack with KK vs. AA, etc, complaint, etc, complaint, etc, etc. Overall I lost 6 buy-ins Friday night.

Saturday was the complete opposite. I wound up winning 3+ buy-ins (in 200 hands) on Saturday night after busting out of the 50/50 and another 2 buy-ins on Sunday even though I spewed quite a few $$ to a fish at a table that Alan I were playing.

All in all I wound up down a little over 1 buy-in for the weekend after being down 6 buy-ins on Friday night, so I'm happy with how things turned out.

The guy at Alan and my table was playing 86/13/1.0 and rarely folded. His stack went from $100 to $650 to $0 to $100 to $500 to $0 to $100 to $300 to $0 to $75 to $0. I paid the guy off twice - once with the ass end of a straight vs. his higher straight. The other time with a 10 high heart flush vs. his J high heart flush on a board with all hearts. He over shoved the river and I called thinking that there was about a 33% he had nothing, 33% chance he had a worse heart, and about 33% chance that he had a better heart. I still think that it was the right call because I think that there was at worst of 50% chance that I had the best hand and I had to call $211 into a $326 pot.

He finally lost all of his chips and left and I could leave and go to sleep about 2 hours after I originally planned.

Alan wound up the beneficiary of the guys spewage thanks in part to the following hands:

Full Tilt Poker $2/$4 No Limit Hold'em - 6 players

The Official DeucesCracked.com Hand History Converter

Octopus8 (MP): $67.40
OhYesTGPFA (CO): $780.20
MrT999 (BTN): $221.90
RecessRampage (SB): $1000.50
HereFisheyFishey (BB): $543.30
Hero (UTG): $400.00

Pre Flop: Hero is UTG with 4 T
1 fold, Octopus8 raises to $14, 2 folds, RecessRampage raises to $46, HereFisheyFishey calls $42, Octopus8 raises to $67.40 all in, RecessRampage calls $21.40, HereFisheyFishey calls $21.40

Flop: ($202.20) J Q T (3 players - 1 is all in)

RecessRampage bets $100, HereFisheyFishey calls $100

Turn: ($402.20) 6 (3 players - 1 is all in)
RecessRampage bets $833.10 all in, HereFisheyFishey calls $375.90 all in

River: ($1154.00) 8
Final Pot: $1154.00
Octopus8 shows As Kc (a straight, Ace high) and won ($199.20) with a straight, Ace high
RecessRampage shows Qd Qs (three of a kind, Queens) and won ($951.80) with three of a kind, Queens
HereFisheyFishey shows 7c 8h (a pair of Eights) - LOLOLOLOL


Alan got lucky that they guy with the Kings was the short stack:

Full Tilt Poker $2/$4 No Limit Hold'em - 6 players
The Official DeucesCracked.com Hand History Converter

JotJot (UTG): $216.50
OhYesTGPFA (MP): $629.90
MrT999 (CO): $92.70
RecessRampage (BTN): $1234.50
HereFisheyFishey (SB): $587.50
Hero (BB): $646.80

Pre Flop: Hero is BB with 4 A

JotJot raises to $12, 2 folds, RecessRampage raises to $42, HereFisheyFishey calls $40, 1 fold, JotJot raises to $216.50 all in, RecessRampage raises to $1234.50 all in, HereFisheyFishey calls $545.50 all in

Flop: ($1395.50) 6 8 K

Turn: ($1395.50) K

River: ($1395.50) 3

Final Pot: $1395.50
JotJot shows Ks Kd (four of a kind, Kings) and won ($650.50) with four of a kind, Kings - Guess this is one time that you can love short stackers.
RecessRampage shows Qs Qc (two pair, Kings and Queens) and won ($742) with two pair, Kings and Queens
HereFisheyFishey shows 8d Ac (two pair, Kings and Eights) - LOLOL - Guess he thought it was pokerstars and the ace would be a given!!!

Sometimes, you just can't leave a juicy table no matter how tired you are. I was ready to hit the sack after the guy left. Unfortunately, i wasn't able to get all my $$ back from the guy, but at least some of them went to Alan. :)