oesfd

How often do you have something like that: an open-ended straight flush draw. I had Th9h and the flop came QhJh7d. I bet out and my opponent minraised. I called and kept calling on future streets, my opponent kept giving me the right odds. I lost a lot of chips on that hand...

Then, just three hands later, I am dealt 99. There were five players left. My stack was now down to 3475 and the blinds were already 200/400, I should have just gone all-in. But no, I raised to 3BB and the BB called and hit his pair on the flop. He then checked and I just had to bet, that was the end of this game for me.

So my idea of starting the next sequence of Steps tournaments in Step 2 has now lead to me earning a ticket to Step 1 the hard way. Well, we will see how that goes.

It sure took some getting used to playing a Step 2 game again, I was simply surrounded by idiots, at least at the start. Fortunately I managed to eliminate some of them, but then disaster struck as described above. I sure feel more at home on the higher levels, but if I can't even win here, I am certainly not going to buy in directly to Step 3 or above!

ITM: 100%

The results of my steps games so far (step 2-6) :-) I know it won't last, so I am enjoying this now!

Step 6 (updated)

Much of this post was written while I was playing the tournament. (Updated May 30 with the second half included)

What you cannot tell from the descriptions below, but was very noticeable, was the speed of play. We played almost 2 hands per minute, this is much faster than the speed I am used to. It was probably because so many people were folding already in the early stages, where I am used to seeing 5- to 7-handed pots. It was clear that some people knew exactly what they were doing, in particular Brink82 and Chalab01. I am less sure about toliman_54 (finished 2nd) who was seated further away from me, but seeing as he survived longer than I did, I'll give him some credit as well :-)

Clear mistakes from me are marked in red below. A nice thing about this game was that I managed to eliminate three opponents and fatally crippled a fourth one.

THE HANDS:

Won the first hand: got 88 OTB. All folded to me, I raised to 5BB, both blinds fold.

Limped with KJ, flop AK2. Both blinds check, I bet 80 into 120 pot. SB calls, turn is third diamond (9), SB checks again. I check, river 5 gives him two pair... he had 5-2!! Stack 1900.

Limped with 77, missed flop, bet 80 against one caller (who plays a lot of pots), he folds. Back to 2000.

Limped with JTd, only BB plays. Flopped two diamonds, called 80. Turn is Th, called 120. He checks river, I bet 200 into 500 pot, he folds. 2200. (Added later: this was actually also quite a clear mistake, if not one that mattered very much. I had to assume I was ahead here. A bet of 100 would have been better, he might still have called that. My bet was actually designed to get him to fold, so it was kind of a scared play.)

Called with AJo UTG and called 3xBB raise. Miss flop and have to fold to c-bet. 1890. On next hand, get 44 and call minraise of same player. Flop QQ9, I bet and he folds. 2040.

TT as SB. Call raise of 3BB=180, flop AKx. I don't dare to try anything here and fold to a c-bet. Stack 1860.

Tried to steal with Q8s in MP. (Heck, this table is playing so tight, why not.) BB, the short stack, calls. Flop Qxx, he goes all-in for 530, I call. Pot is 920 and I am fairly sure I am ahead here. He has 44. I eliminated the first player! 9 left, stack 2600.

88 as SB, limp, bet into flop JJT, both opps fold. Stack 2700, level 50/100.

QhJd as BB, button calls with J7s... Flop 873 with two diamonds, I bet and he calls. Turn is Qd! Now I check, he bets 300 into pot 650 and I just call, worried about the flush but with a flush draw myself. He must be worried too since he checks the blank river behind me. Stack 3400.

A9 OTB, all fold and I call. Flop A42 with two spades, BB bets 200 into 300 pot, I just call. He then checks the turn 7. Thinking that he was just bluffing, I bet another 300. He checkraises me all-in for 920! I have to call 620 into a 1920 pot, a trivial call and he has A5. This is the second player I eliminated! 7 players left, stack 4400.

Stole two pots in a row, once as button I had to c-bet with K2 on a flop of AQx... (My opponent had checked after thinking for a while, so I knew I had a good chance here.) Stack now 4670.

Some time later, after folding a number of hands in a row, I get 55 in MP and raise to 3BB = 600. The small blind goes all-in for 1260 and I have a clear call, getting 3:1 on my money. He has AK and I win the race. 6 players left, stack 6230! However, on the very next hand I get 66 UTG+1. UTG calls and I raise to 600 again. (PS June 13th: another relatively clear mistake, raising on two successive hands is likely to lead to somebody calling. Also, in the previous game with 55 I was first in, here there was already somebody in the pot.) UTG calls, making him pot committed. He raises my c-bet all-in for 430 and has 99. Down to 5200.

A number of hands later (stack 5100), I raise to 900 = 3BB with KJ UTG, perhaps not my best move of the night. The same player from just now, here BB, goes all-in for 560 to call this and has AK. That's the second time I doubled him up! Stack 3910.

A dubious call, a failed steal and some blinds bring me down to 2440. However, three players are still below me with stacks 1270 (twice) and 1870. Just a few hands later, the two smallest stacks go all-in against eachother! Now I am officially in the money and assured of $500, easily my biggest payout ever. Now the question is how much further I can get with the second smallest stack.

As SB, I go all-in after all fold and do not get called, fortunately. (This seemed to be the only way to get money from the BB, who made a habit of reraising my raises.)

Then I get AA as BB and stupidly reraise after the button raises. He folds, so that I make only 900 from this hand. However, this does move me into 2nd place momentarily. Disaster strikes a few hands later when I raise with AQ and run into AK in the BB, putting me down to 1770. But then, with AK UTG, I go all-in and the BB (you know, the player I doubled up twice already in this game) called with AT for nearly his entire stack. I did not do the calculations, but this move seems dubious. Anyway I finally win a hand against him and get back to 3690.

We are now three small stacks and one huge stack which keeps getting bigger by hammering the other stacks. After three rounds with four players, the smallest stack makes a stand with A9 when the button raises all-in, and loses to Q7. Now I am ensured $700 but I also clearly have the smallest stack. I get lucky when my all-in with KQ gets called by 55 and I turn a straight. However, on the very next hand, the button raises to 3BB = 1200 and I go all-in for 6380 with AK for some mysterious reason. I might just have called and waited to see a flop, but nooo. He has JJ and I lose the race, nearly losing my entire stack in the process. So this is where I basically lost $300 (and possibly more) on a coin flip.

The penultimate hand was quite incredible. I was already down to 540, blinds 200/400. I could not believe my eyes when I saw what my opponents did.

Blinds: t200/t400
3 players

Pre-flop: (3 players) Hero is BB with 4♠ 8♣
Button raises to t1200, SB raises all-in t11100, Hero folds, Button calls all-in t6570.

Uncalled bets: t3530 returned to SB.

Flop: T♣ 6♥ 9♦ (t8570, 0 player + 2 all-in - Main pot: t15940)

Turn: 7♥ (t8570, 0 player + 2 all-in - Main pot: t15940)

River: 8♠ (t8570, 0 player + 2 all-in - Main pot: t15940)

Results:
Final pot: t8570

Brink82 shows [ Jh, Ah ]a straight Seven to Jack.
toliman_54 shows [ Kd, As ]a straight Six to Ten.
toliman_54 wins 3,530 chips from side pot #1 with a straight, Six to Ten.
Brink82 wins 15,940 chips from the main pot with a straight, Seven to Jack.


All Brink82 had to do was fold to be sure of $1000. So this bet could have cost him $300 (third place gets $700). On the other hand, this win gave him a completely dominant position and he indeed went on to first place for $2000. So looking at it again, the bet might actually have been reasonable, seeing as he was "only" risking $300 to win an additional $1000. Funny.

Step 5

Just a quick post while I am off to play... Step 6!!! I just cannot believe how easily this is going. Players seem to be falling over themselves to give me their money. Just now I got AA in the BB, and raised to 240 = 6BB after an early minraise. Minraiser calls and keeps calling on a flop of Qxx, eventually giving me his entire stack. After all, he had a queen in his hand with a powerful kicker: a seven.

Anyway, I guess I will just go out in tenth place in Step 6, but it will be interesting to play. Hey, maybe I will do a liveblogging...

Step 4

... and now I won a Step 4 SNG. It was again surprisingly easy, I didn't have to do anything special and made the most of the good cards that I got. It also didn't hurt that I got AA twice early on :-) The first one was at blinds level 50/100, I reraised to 500 after an early minraise. I was SB and the BB went all-in! It looked like I would have to play a three-way pot, but fortunately the original raiser folded. The BB showed 77 - do you think he might not have believed my bet?

Anyway, I suppose Step 5 is going to be more complicated to get through... The good thing is that there are 8 places that pay, and reaching the last four is enough to stay in Step 5.

Step 3

I won a Step 3 SNG at Party! Like Step 2, it was surprisingly easy, but I was helped by some great cards. This is how the bubble burst (top 3 get a ticket to step 4):

Blinds: t100/t200
Stack sizes:
UTG: t1970
Button: t3170
Hero: t8860
BB: t6000

Pre-flop: (4 players) Hero is SB with 7♠ 9♣

UTG calls t200 (pot was t300), Button calls t200 (pot was t500), Hero calls t100 (pot was t700), BB checks.

Flop: 2♥ 4♥ 7♦ (t800, 4 players)

Hero bets t400, BB folds, UTG raises all-in t1770, Button folds, Hero calls t1370 (pot was t2970). (With a stack like this, why fold?)

Turn: 7♥ (t4340, 1 player + 1 all-in - Main pot: t4340)

River: 9♥ (t4340, 1 player + 1 all-in - Main pot: t4340)

Results:
Final pot: t4340
Rob1606 shows [ 7s, 9c ]a full house, Sevens full of Nines.
koppiesop shows [ Jh, Jc ]a flush, Jack high.
Rob1606 wins 4,340 chips from the main pot with a full house, Sevens full of Nines.
Player koppiesop finished in 4 place and received Entry to Step 3($30 USD)

So my opponent had an overpair and a backdoor flush draw, and he actually made his flush... The river card was quite funny from my perspective: any non-heart except a jack would have simply won immediately, but it was of course much more fun to win with the single heart card that my opponent did not want to see.

I had to wait quite a long time for this game to start: 25 minutes or so. It seems that there is much more traffic at the lower levels (not very surprising I suppose). Well, I look forward to playing the next step (either tonight or tomorrow). The payout there is basically the same as in step 3: top 3 gets promoted to Step 5, places 4-7 get entries to various lower steps. So the initial goal is not to go out in places 8-10...

AJs

Another annoying experience: I picked up AA as SB. In this game, several people had already lost big pots with AA and KK. And the signs did not look good when UTG raised to 300 (2 times BB) and got called. Worried that I would have to play a pot with too many opponents, I went all-in for 1900.

What happened next? The big blind went all-in. I already saw myself having to play a pot with three opponents (with accordingly decreased winning odds), but at least the first two players came to their senses and folded.

My opponent then flipped up the monster hand AJs. So he went all-in with this hand after a raise, a call, and an all-in reraise. And yes, of course he made his flush.

Oh well, at least I have the feeling that I am playing well, if not always getting rewarded for it. I also started playing the Steps games at Party Poker, see here. I'm starting all the way at the bottom with the $3 games, to see how far up I can get. So far I've managed to make third place once (giving me a new ticket for Step 1) and fifth place. Hopefully my next $3 will last longer!

Calculating odds

I just had a pretty disgusting experience:

Party Poker
No Limit Holdem Tournament
Blinds: t30/t60
9 players

Pre-flop: (9 players) Hero is Button with K♠ A♥

UTG calls t60 (pot was t90), 3 fold, Villain calls t60 (pot was t150), CO folds, Hero raises to t240, 2 fold, UTG calls t180 (pot was t450), Villain calls t180 (pot was t630).

Flop: T♠ Q♠ 3♠ (t810, 3 players)
UTG checks, Villain bets t810, Hero raises all-in t2180, UTG folds, Villain calls all-in t690.

Uncalled bets: t680 returned to Hero.

Turn: 8♥

River: 4♥

Results:
Final pot: t3810

Villain shows [ 8s, Ad ]a pair of Eights.
Hero shows [ Ks, Ah ]high card Ace.
Hero wins 680 chips from side pot #1 with high card, Ace.
Villain wins 3,810 chips from the main pot with a pair of Eights.


My opponent was just bluffing of course and got lucky (if he was playing to make his flush, he should have bet less, because now he was not getting the right odds). However, after playing this hand I realized that I had calculated the odds incorrectly. At the crucial point the pot is 1620 and I need to call 810. However, if I do call, he only has 690 left which makes him pot committed. So I should have treated his bet as an all-in call, since his money will definitely go into the pot after the turn (assuming he is not an idiot, which is perhaps a bad assumption, but he will have the opportunity to bet 690 into a pot of 2430 which are of course great odds, even if he needs to make the flush on the river (he cannot know that his flush would be useless)).

So his bet was actually 1500, making the pot 2310, and now I need to pay 1500, giving me odds of only 40%. However, in the current hand this mistake does not make a difference, since I am actually 60% favorite to improve, so there was no bet that he could make that would make it wrong for me to call.

Conclusion? I played correctly, but am not happy about the result. That's poker I guess!

ROI: 100%

Of course I realize that this is not statistically significant at all, but it still looks pretty nice :-)

This is how my most recent SNG went, it was 121 games. I thought that I had not played very well, but on reflection it seems that I made only three mistakes: twice refusing to call despite good or even great pot odds, and once overbetting AA preflop after an early raise. Overall, I am quite happy with the way I played here.


Hand 1: AK as BB, three callers. I raise to 4BB (160), only SB folds. Flop KK2... check. UTG checks, button tries to steal by betting 160. I flat call, UTG goes all-in! I call, he has JK.

AcJd in EP, call 40. Button raises to 200, player before me and I call. Flop K72 clubs, we both check, button bets pot. Other player folds but I have enough odds to call. Turn 2d, we both check. Flop 6h, I bet 200 into pot of 2000 as a steal attempt. He raises to 760. The pot is 3000 and I need to pay 560, those are great odds but I basically have nothing and I believe he has something. Still, at those odds it looks like I should have called.

AQ in EP, raise to 4BB = 400, all fold. I had noticed that bets of 200 and 300 were getting called.

K4 on button, all fold, 300 is enough to get them to fold here.

JJ UTG, raise to 300. CO calls, others fold. Flop T97, two clubs. On this dangerous-looking flop, I bet 500 into 750 pot. He raises me all-in (2500), I call although I basically expect him to have an overpair. And indeed he turns over QQ, but the turn is a Jack... Was it a bad call? I have to call 2000 into a 4000 pot. Given that he has a higher pair, I have 2 (J) + 4 (8) = 6 outs plus a backdoor flush draw, so maybe 7 outs in total. That's actually almost 30%! That nearly gives me the right odds to call, plus of course he might be bluffing (10% possibility according to Harrington :-) ) which gives me easily the right odds to call. Interesting, when I made the call and he showed his QQ I was pretty sure that it had been a bad mistake. Very surprising!

A hand that I was not involved in: button with AQ goes all-in for 1800, SB calls all-in for 1200 with KQ. Again, this looked very stupid, but I now see that he had to call 1100 into a 1500 pot. Against any pair below queens he is only slightly behind, a higher pair is extremely unlikely given the all-in, and even against AQ he has I think reasonable chances (38%?). Given that the button might also have been bluffing, again this was a good call. Whether the SB made these calculations is of course another question entirely...

AA as SB, EP raises to 4BB = 800. I reraise to 1600, not very subtle. After long thought, he folds. Silly move from me. Stack 6400.

A8, I raise to 3BB = 1200 UTG, five players left. Small stack calls for 740 with QQ and wins. Stack down to 4700.

A few hands later, I get TK as SB and raise to 1200 again. Same opponent calls, this time with 1480 and 74o! The 7 on the river keeps him alive, and I am now down to 3600 (blinds 200/400).

I steal a few pots and meet no resistance, but am "only" managing to remain stable. Down to 3 players, the one to my right has 10k and soon 12k. However, I then re-steal from him with A9 (all-in) and 55 (all-in). Both times he refuses to call. This puts me up to 7k suddenly. On the next hand, I go all-in for the third consecutive game, I have again A9 and do not get called: 8k. Then, the small stack moves all-in with 67, the big stack calls with A8 and the board comes 7-5-T-7-J. Now we suddenly all have about equal stacks!

With T7c, I (BB) and SB see a flop 963 with two clubs. He goes all-in, making it 6000 for me to call into a pot of 7200. I am actually favorite to get either a flush, a straight, or an overpair. And it in fact seems likely that an overpair would be sufficient to win this hand. Nevertheless, at this point I do not like to stake my tournament on a few draws and cowardly fold. (I had not actually looked at the odds that PokerOffice showed me here.)

Three hands later, my opponents go all-in against eachother: one raises to 3BB = 1800, other raises to 4200 with A9s, first one goes all-in on J8s and his opponent calls again. The moves of the A9 player were perhaps somewhat reasonable, but the J8 player was of course being a complete idiot. He cannot expect to be ahead here and more importantly, is giving me free money since I am now guaranteed at least a second place. This is the player that had 12k just 20 hands or so ago...

So the heads-up phase starts two hands later with him eliminated, blinds 300/600, my stack 5.5k and his 14.5k. On the very first hand, I call a minraise with T6 (note: you should usually call minraises heads-up with any two cards, just as you should call as SB; the pot odds are great) and flop a straight: 789. I check and he is nice enough to bet 2400 and call my all-in checkraise with 82.

Three hands later, I call with 92 and he checks with 84. Flop Q67, he checks and I make a continuation bet of 600. He calls so I am going to check from here on. Turn 5 gives him a straight... and he decides (naturally) to slowplay. However, the river is an 8, giving me a 9-high straight. Now he starts betting and we quickly get it all-in.

FINALLY

I finally managed to win a $10 SNG on the fifth attempt. This was going to be my last attempt before dropping back to $5.

Of course I needed a bit of luck:

Level: t150/t300
5 players

Pre-flop: (5 players) Hero is BB with 9♥ A♥

UTG folds, CO raises to 300, (This guy was minraising on nearly every hand, so I did not take this seriously)
Button folds,
SB raises all-in t320, (who cares)
Hero raises all-in t1970, (attempt to isolate all-in player)
CO calls. (oops...)

Flop: A♦ 4♥ (what a lovely ace)

Turn: 3♦

River: 4♣

Results:
Rob1606 collected t1185.
Rob1606 collected t3450.
Anticap leaves

This has pushed my total net winnings over $300 for the first time. I made a profit of $263 since one month ago (when I bought the Harrington books).

PS June 13th: Anticap is on "Super Tilt" according to Sharkscope. Total losses $775, ROI -5%...

Question

After surviving three hours in a Party $1 MTT, I got QJo UTG. My stack is 37000 and the blinds are 1500/3000 with antes of 75 (I think it was), so my M is 7. However, on the next hand, the blinds will increase to 2000/4000 with antes 100 (again, as far as I remember), and I was going to be the big blind, so my M was going to drop to about 4.7.

I decide to go all-in and get called by a huge stack with AJ, and lose. I have been wondering whether it was the right move to make. Harrington gives an example with KQo but there the M was already down to 3.5, so the situation was more desperate and the cards were better. What do you think?

$10 SNGs

I played three of them, went out in fourth, fifth, and seventh place. Here is what happened.

1. Hand 4, AJ in MP, just call. Flop JTx, EP bets 100 (level 10/20). I raise to 220, he goes all-in. I simply cannot believe that I am beaten here (if I am, why does he go all-in?) so I call, not liking it much though. He shows Q6d!
Stack 2500, level 75/150, I reraise an all-in bet of a stack of 361 with KQ and go all-in myself. I lose to A9. I had to call 361 into a pot of 586, so it was OK that he was a slight favorite (as I expected).
Stack 2050, level 75/150, raise to 450 with KTo, get called. C-bet gets reraised to 3000! I fold. I had noticed that the BB (player X) was very aggressive, which is why I raised to 450 and not just to 300 as I might have otherwise. After the call, I think the c-bet is a mistake, as it puts me down to 1375. If I wanted to do anything but check-fold, I should go all-in.
With 4 players left, I get lucky when my all-in bet as SB (stack 1450, level 100/200) gets called by 66 (X!) and I catch a 9 on the flop.
However, two hands later I go all-in with 88 as BB after there were two callers. X calls with AK and wins the race. I actually have a few chips left after this pot and win the next hand with J7 (!), but then lose with 66 to K8s (X), who gets a flush on the river.

2. Stack down to 860, level 25/50, UTG minraises to 100. I raise to 300 with QQ, the blinds fold and he has to call 200 into a pot of 475. He does this with KTo... and the flop is QJ9. He goes all-in and I call. What can I say?

3. KQo in EP, level 50/100, stack 1300. Loose player before me minraises. I call as does the BB. Flop Kxx, two small spades. He bets 300. I make a crucial mistake in raising only to 600, giving him a forced call. Of course he completes his nut flush on the turn.

This last game was the first time that I clearly had the idea that the players were better than at the $5 level. People got eliminated only slowly (7 left after 36 games). Still, there were many minraises in the early stages, and pots with 5-6 people, followed by minbets on following rounds... All not terribly impressive.

Times Six Nine! (After dividing by four)

Just another short post to brag about my progress at Party :-) In my last post, I described how I used my last $6 to reach a 2nd place in an SNG. Tonight I came in 1st, 4th and 2nd, bringing me back to $37!

To reach the 1st place I had to get quite lucky early on, I got it all-in with KT on a flop of Kxx against what turned out to be AK. Ten on the river... Not sure why I did this, usually I am not that stupid (I like to think). It could have something to do with the fact that I was playing 2 SNGs at the same time, I think this leads me to take the individual games less seriously ("If I lose this, I still have the other game running...")

The 2nd place on the other hand was marked by very bad luck at the end: all-in on top pair, my opponent called with bottom pair and made a set on the turn...

PS: I changed the title in order not to mislead my many readers ;-) As I detailed in an earlier post, I did lose some SNGs at Party before finally making my comeback.

PPS May 14th: just won another SNG :-) Got a wee bit lucky on the final hand: with the stacks nearly tied, I went all-in on KTo (brilliant move, I know). He calls with AK... and I get a ten on the flop. (I only noticed just now that this is extremely similar to what I described ten lines above :-) Seems I like KT too much. On the other hand, it pays...)

Comebacks

I had some incredible comebacks tonight. At PKR, I was down to 140 chips (you start with 1500), I could not even pay the small blind anymore on the very next hand (level 200/400) and eventually I came in second--I was up to 7000 chips at one point during the heads up phase. Of course I was very lucky, for instance when I went allin for BB + 50 or so and the BB refused to call this bet...

Then at Pacific, I got AA on hand 5 in early position. I raised (only) 3xBB (in a previous game I had raised 4x after which everybody folded, but I suppose that is the better move nevertheless). Got three callers, flop KQx. EP bets 20, I bet 200 (pot 260). This only gets rid of the SB, unfortunately. Turn is a harmless looking 8 and I go all-in. The player behind me had K8... This left me with 290. I won the tournament 82 games later.

I also came in 2nd at Party with my last $6 there! So now I have $15 there again, will see if I can make any more out of it. The level seems higher than at Pacific, though I have had great success playing micro-limit cash games at Party.

So overall I made $40 tonight (excluding rakes). This is second only to my $100 win that I blogged about recently, but it does not feel like I did anything special. I am really starting to wonder about moving to $10 SNGs, at least at Pacific. I guess I will try and work my way up to $300 net profit first--I am already at $250 now!

Party SNGs

I've played four of them now, cashed once (2nd place). In chronological order:

1. Heads-up, stack 3200, level 200/400, all-in on K3. This would be level 8 in SAGE, but the table ends at 7. Still, extrapolating it gives that this would be the right decision, but it would probably have been even better to continue and play regular poker for (at least) one more game. I got called by A5 and lost. Out in 2nd place.
   
2. This one is very embarrassing. I had QJ as BB. On a flop of low cards, I bet 3/4 of the pot and got two callers. But I did not notice that, I thought there was only one. Then when a queen hit on the turn, I again bid 3/4 of the pot, the first opponent folded but the second one called! An Ace on the river scared us both, but he had pocket 7s and had made trips on the flop. All in all, perhaps I did not play the game that badly (just considering my actions, not what I was thinking...). Anyway this little joke cost me half my stack, and two games later I tried to get it back by going all-in with 55. However, I did this after there had been a raise and two callers in front of me. The caller with A9 (???) called me and won. Out in 10th place!
3. On a flop of 665, the original caller in first position did a minbet of 40 into a pot of 140. I decided to raise to 120 with AJo. He called but checked the turn 9. At this point I possibly could have stolen the hand but decided to take the free card, which was another 9. Now he bet 120, but at this point I was pretty sure that my Ace kicker would win me the hand, so I called (why not do another small raise then?). Indeed he had a 5. At the end of this game, stack 2000, level 100/200, the button raised to 600, I was BB with 66 and went all-in. He called for his last 1300 with A9s. This was a bad decision because I could basically be sure when I called that I was at best a slight favorite (against two high cards), I could have waited a bit longer. Out in 5th.
4. Here I actually played reasonable. With 55 in late position, I raised to 3xBB after all previous players folded, and I got one caller (BB). He checked the flop A96 so I did a continuation bet of half the pot, which he called after some thought. Then I just checked it down, and it turns out he had TT. This put me down to 1270 (level 50/100). I managed to survive for another 32 games after this, when I amazingly again had exactly 1270, and then I pushed my A3 into AA (BB). Out in 6th.

So on balance, I played badly in games 2 and 3 (at least on the decisive hands), and OK in games 1 and 4. I guess I will spend my final Party money tonight and see what I can do with it.

Bad decisions

I played in a $2 tournament with 942 players at Party Poker, and then some SNGs. Here I will highlight some bad decisions that I made today.

QJs, 3rd position, first two fold: I fold as well? It is OK to play conservative but I might have ventured a call here. Flop Qxx.
AJs, I call, four other callers. Flop AQ8, pot 1000, I bet 600. Opponent raises to 1200, has 2000 left after this. All others fold and it is 600 to call into a pot of 2800. I might have wondered why he raised here, but this was the first hand I played in 40 hands and I was just annoyed about the reraise. I went all-in and he had A8, leaving me with 1500.

Fortunately I managed to double up a few hands later, when I went all-in as BB after there were only 2 callers. I only had 78o, but it looked like a good spot. I got called by 44 but got a 7 on the flop. Some rounds later I did the same with 85o as SB after there was only one caller (stack 2960, level 200/400), did not get called that time. (Original caller had 3000, not sure whether I looked at that at the time.) And then with A2o. And then with A9 OTB, but got called by the SB with JJ. Then I had the most amazing luck: the flop was 444, turn 4. Suddenly his second J was irrelevant and it was all about the kicker: now my stack went up to 8000.

Then my most annoying hand of the tournament, the last one (for me). I had TT and raised 3xBB (stack 7300, level 300/600). This was apparently not impressive enough, since I got called by ... QJo?? Flop Jxx, I go allin and home. I don't think I can avoid going all-in on this flop, I suppose I should have just gone all-in preflop but it was just too tempting to try and get some more chips out of this hand. Too dangerous with just two tens! I checked it just now and an example with TT in the orange zone is actually given in Harrington, vol.II. Definitely an all-in. Hopefully I can remember this for the next time.

This reminds me of another bad decision I made yesterday, in a $5 tournament. Stack 3400, level 100/200, AQ in second position. I raise to 3xBB, I get TWO callers and then the SB goes all-in for 1400! I can't tell you how annoyed I was at these developments. People are supposed to respect my raises. It was in this frame of mind that I now went allin. Of course opp. #1 (88) and #2 (QKo) called, and the SB turned out to have QTo (obviously you want to push in this situation with a raise and two calls in front of you, but I should be saying that about myself...). Board: T-6-2-4-A. That put me up to 10k suddenly... I think the main other bad decision in that tournament was at the end, when I was still playing actively with 13 players left, although the payout was going to increase starting from 10th place. Folding would have surely made me more money. (As a final bad decision I offer the response of the BB in the last hand that I played there: he called my all-in bet with K2o.... for nearly half his stack.)

Ups and downs

I guess it is always like this when you play poker: you win some, you lose some!

In my latest SNG, I managed to some in second, and I would have done better if it hadn't been for a rivered flush. We reached the heads-up phase relatively early, so that I couldn't play SAGE yet. Left to my own devices, my stack remained mostly constant but started dropping off towards the end - I was relieved to be able to switch to SAGE and let the cards determine the outcome.

I learned only recently (finished Vol.II now) that you should never fold preflop as SB in a heads-up situation, at least not as long as your opponent doesn't make a habit of raising your calls. So it was nice to see my opponent fold in several situations - always good to know you know something about the game your opponent doesn't. Not that it helped me so much in the end!

I also played in the 10 cent tournament that Pacific offers every night. Of course it can never bring you any kind of significant winnings, but it is just fun to play and see how far I can get. I hope the experience does help me to play better in future MTTs, even if the opposition there will of course be much tougher. This time I actually managed to finish in the money, went out in 13th place out of 597. I probably could have finished higher too, but started playing a bit reckless when I found myself with 67000 chips when the average chip stack was 12000. It is hard to play conservative at such a point! Anyway so I won $1 with that, which is a nice return on investment ;-)

So I feel that I am again playing better, more measured poker, cashing in my last three tournaments (two SNGs and this one). It really helped me to go over the SNGs I described in my last post in more detail, to see that I was not playing so badly after all. An unfortunate side effect (at least for me) of bad results is that I start to play worse, trying to force things to happen. Also, I tend to focus on the things that went wrong and forget about all the hands where I played well or got lucky. Bad luck seems to make more of an impression on me.

Not just plain sailing

My recent SNGs...

1. Tried two steals in a row, second one gets allin as a reaction, fold. This is something that I have tried before, it hardly ever works: the second "steal" really needs to be with very good cards! Five players left, level 75/150, stack 1600. Minraise in second position with AQ. Button calls, BB minreraises to 450. Pot is now 1125, I have 1150 left after calling, and my M will be 5. It's a clear call at least, but perhaps I should have gone allin here. Anyway, the flop is AT6 and BB goes allin. I need to call 1150 into a pot of 2550. Of course I call, he has AK. I think my play was reasonable here.
   
2. With AJ, flop A82, bet half the pot and get called. Worried, I check the turn 8, he checks as well and completes his flush on the river. This was not the last hand of this particular tournament, but an important one. (PS: Actually, it was quite irrelevant, since I did manage to double up soon after this... it just really annoyed me, so it put me in a bad state of mind.) Of course this was a direct result of #1 happening just before this game. I guess I did not realize at the time that my play was actually reasonable in game 1, and it would also have been reasonable to go allin here. At the very least I should have bet 200 more to keep him from getting a free card. ... I did manage to work my way back up to 1500 when my AQ allin beat JJ. A few hands after this I was afraid to try and steal from the big stack in the BB, even though he was playing tight, I had A4 OTB, and everyone folded to me. Finally, with 1300, level 75/150, I go allin UTG with 55 and get called by the BB who has 88. A bit questionable, perhaps.
   
3. With KK, level 25/50, I reraise 100 to 300, get called. Flop AKJ, he bets 200, I raise to 400, he reraises to 800, I go allin. He has KQ, turn A, river T. Why did he even call my reraise preflop??

The positive thing to take away from these games is that on reflection, I seem to be playing reasonably here. Also, a few $5 losses (I had five in a row eventually, before making a third place) are not nearly as damaging to my bankroll as they used to be. I guess I became too results-oriented during these games, especially after just winning two SNGs in a row. You start to expect to win every game, which is an extremely dangerous attitude to have.