Late Night Poker Tour: Quarterly Tournament of Champions

Worst QTOC ever, b/c basically entries are based on performance over 3 months but there are only about 6 or 7 regulars, so as a regular it'd be embarassing to not make it.

That said, I rarely play tournaments anymore, and I won last night, so...you take your victories as they come.

It was an FTP 2-stacked thing, and since the field tends to be loose/bluffy early, well, I did what I always did and blew off a buncha chips right away.

I call this first hand "hey there's a really good player on the button. let's pump up the pot so he can take it away from me."


I got 3bet by the tightest living human and layed down AJ, and nowI'm down to 2500 and nit up. My image is horrible with those that aren't solid (about half of them) to begin with, and now it looks like I'm playing maniacally. So I wait.

P.S.: Woo for waiting! Although given the board, I'm not sure how Seitz gets away here, unless he checks the turn which is probably 74% too nitty for words.


Yay, I'm riiiiich. Oh wait, there was this hand. I hate the way it went down, but I wonder, given the weird flop action, if there was any way out for me.


Now I'm back to 2300 and self-flagellation. I know that against whataboutj, tdog, lucky, and hoffa I'm likely to have to play for stacks if we play a pot. littlebu and fsu88 are solid but will play back at me. And osumike will sometimes allow himself to be bullied. So I'm going to work on his blinds, and in the meantime try not to get out of line.

I forget about not getting out of line a bit later. In this hand, there were so many limps I wanted to raise just on principle, but didn't. Anyhow, on the flop hoffa put out that ridiculous probe bet, which I noticed he does quite a bit. And, having thought about raising preflop, the dry flop, et cetera, I figured it might be a good time to take it down. It was.


I hate this hand, b/c villain is 26/10 and has folded to 3bets 2/11 times in the 800 or so hands I have on him. So I know he's not raising with 22, I think he's not raising with AT, and I KNOW he's calling with every single hand that beats me. But I'm just so inclined to be aggressive that I make these dumb shoves. I hate it, it's a horrible move, and I got super-donk-lucky.


On the other hand, there's this hand. Lucky is a similar player to tdog...he limps a lot, raises little, and gets spewy later in hands. This looked to me like the classic limp in with a little sumthin sumthin and then reraise b/c what the hell might as well. I may have had a hard time with TT, but I don't think so...and this was a pretty easy fistpump snapcall.


Now I'm at 6600 and I can play.
Stacks:
Seat 1: littlebu ( $5935.00 USD ) <-- to be feared. we have a lot of history, and he's a strong player
Seat 2: FSU88 ( $3546.00 USD ) <-- to be feared. similar to littlebu, but in addition i'm not sure the stt is his strength, which is even more scary. he does weird stuff and I'd prefer to not get involved.
Seat 4: mwfeldman ( $6659.00 USD )
Seat 5: osumike11379 ( $1350.00 USD ) <-- will play very solid. target for abuse.
Seat 8: whataboutj ( $6640.00 USD ) <-- likes to defend his blinds, slowplays maybe a bit too much, otherwise pretty tight. very reluctant to open pots.
Seat 9: Hoffa13 ( $2870.00 USD ) <-- pretty aggro/weird. not sure what's up with him, even though i have a lot of hands with him. too lazy to look up numbers now, but last night was the same. i have most my hands with him at p*, and HEM isn't good at combining usernames from diff sites. So I didn't have his #s up from p*. At FTP, in limited action, he's 33/24/9 (!).

In all, I like my seat a lot, with the two most dangerous players on my right and the very tightest player on my left.

This hand is weird, b/c...well obviously. I check behind the flop b/c I don't think he has any outs. His call on the turn, I think, mostly has to do with my flop check. I feel like he's value betting a nine or 66-88 type hand on the river. I was pretty sure he wouldn't call, but I feel like there was some chance he would, and there was pretty much 0% chance he had me beat.


I double up osumike with J4s (wooooo!), and chop away at the blinds for awhile. Here's osumike's hand, btw. I want to put it up b/c I think it's a pretty big mistake on his part.

Seat 1: littlebu ( $3995.00 USD )
Seat 2: FSU88 ( $3386.00 USD )
Seat 4: mwfeldman ( $9319.00 USD )
Seat 5: osumike11379 ( $1110.00 USD )
Seat 8: whataboutj ( $6400.00 USD )
Seat 9: Hoffa13 ( $2790.00 USD )
osumike11379 posts small blind [$80.00 USD].
whataboutj posts big blind [$160.00 USD].
** Dealing down cards **
Dealt to mwfeldman [ 4s Js ]
Hoffa13 folds
littlebu folds
FSU88 folds
mwfeldman raises [$430.00 USD]
osumike11379 raises [$1030.00 USD]
whataboutj folds
mwfeldman calls [$680.00 USD]
osumike11379 shows [4d, Ad ]
mwfeldman shows [4s, Js ]
** Dealing Flop ** [ 6c, 5d, Jd ]
** Dealing Turn ** [ 3s ]
** Dealing River ** [ 2d ]
osumike11379 wins $2380.00 USD from main pot

Mike only has 1030, my raise is to 430, so he knows I'm not folding. Let's say he gives me 30% on my button raise. Then...
equity win tie pots won pots tied
Hand 0: 48.028% 44.85% 03.18% 1108882084 78652760.00 { A4s }
Hand 1: 51.972% 48.79% 03.18% 1206379372 78652760.00 { 55+, A2s+, K5s+, Q7s+, J8s+, T8s+, 98s, A7o+, A5o, K9o+, Q9o+, J9o+, T9o }

Yeah, that's right...he's a dog. Why guarantee a race in which you have no edge? BTW, if he gives me 40%, then he's 50.5% woooooooo...

So basically it's a really bad play to reshove with a bad ace hi if you can't get the guy to fold. He tells me in chat he thought I was making a move, et cetera. I bide my time.

Then I make the crush.


I bust hoffa with JJ > QK aipf, and we're 3 handed, blinds 120/240 and a 50ante.
Seat 1: littlebu ( $11107.00 USD )
Seat 4: mwfeldman ( $10927.00 USD )
Seat 8: whataboutj ( $4966.00 USD )

I consider this to be far from an optimal situation. whataboutj gets sik aggressive shorthanded, and littlebu is the player I feared most at the table since hand one. And whatabout j may be short, but at 20bbs is still plenty deep enough to play back and get me to lay down. My plan is to pick up AA v KK like 3 times. Also, it's to be aggressive as always, lay down when necessary, and have them make bigger mistakes than me. If I nit up they'll know it and run me over. If I play my game, they'll sometimes get a little too wrapped up in the joy of getting me to fold. That said, I'd still like AA v KK.

The first hand of note: god-bless-america that I started playing cash games. I think I'm like 66.4% more creative now, and I basically would never 3bet in the past. Not that this hand is particularly creative, but still...


So 3handed I open then fold 3 times, which means (maybe) that I'm getting played back at, which is a good thing according to my plan. Since I know they're not gonna let me run them over, I want them ramping up aggression and making big mistakes. But then this hand comes up, and I think it's my mistake. My shove offers him 2:1, so unless I think he's pretty far out of line, I'm taking a race. And, of course, it'll cripple me to lose the pot. Which I do.


Down to m<3, I just log out and let myself blind out.

Yeah, no. Not really.
I get a walk the very next hand (?). I fold k2 in the sb, shove rags on the button and pick up another set of blinds. I fold my bb, then steal the button and sb and get another walk. Alrighty then! I've doubled up, and whataboutj can spew. Can I sneak into h/u play? Yes sir, yes I can. I see what happened there, but I think J was missing some key points. Mostly...it wouldn't really hurt bu to double him up, but it hurts J a lot to go bust here. The board is pretty scary, his hand is of moderate strength, and I'm really short. I think it's a pretty easy fold (for a slightly tough fold, that is). I think J's pot sized bet is the real problem. It made him feel trapped. Not necessary, imo. 1000 does the trick, I guess, and makes it easier to fold.



In any event, woo h/u!!!
Seat 1: littlebu ( $24643.00 USD )
Seat 4: mwfeldman ( $2357.00 USD )

Two double ups would be nice. If only I could pick up aces on my first hand. If only...
***** Hand History for Game 8174760892 *****
$30000.00 USD NL Texas Hold'em - Monday, September 22, 12:49:48 ET 2008
Table Chiptalk LNPT (61893922) Table 1 (Real Money)
Seat 1 is the button
Seat 1: littlebu ( $24643.00 USD )
Seat 4: mwfeldman ( $2357.00 USD )
littlebu posts small blind [$150.00 USD].
mwfeldman posts big blind [$300.00 USD].
littlebu posts ante of [$25.00 USD].
mwfeldman posts ante of [$25.00 USD].
** Dealing down cards **
Dealt to mwfeldman [ Ac As ]
littlebu raises [$24468.00 USD]
mwfeldman calls [$2032.00 USD]
littlebu shows [Td, Ks ]
mwfeldman shows [Ac, As ]
littlebu wins $22286.00 USD
** Dealing Flop ** [ 9d, 7d, 3h ]
** Dealing Turn ** [ 5c ]
** Dealing River ** [ 9s ]
mwfeldman wins $4714.00 USD from main pot

w00t. We go back and forth for 20 hands or so with small pots and flop takedowns, and on HEM it looks like I'm running him over but I've only grinded up to 5400. Flopping 2 pair is always nice. I'm happy with the way I played it, and I'd like to have not shown my hand down but there's no way he folds a better hand if I raise the river and I don't think he calls with much of anything worse. The board cooperated and I was able to check two streets, otherwise I don't think I make an additional chip on this pot.


New stacks:
Seat 1: littlebu ( $10622.00 USD )
Seat 4: mwfeldman ( $16378.00 USD )

We go back and forth, with smallish pots, I flop one pot huge, he donks and then folds (drats), and then we finish it off with a good old-fashioned cooler.


This is a pleasing result for me. Then, today, I resumed the torture of 50nl. We're taking a 4 day trip to DC in November, followed by 5 days in Chicago, so my streak of big volume months will likely be over. It kinda looks to me that it won't be a moment too soon.