PCA Qualifying Tourney Report

The structure of these tournaments is pretty good: 2500 chips to start, blinds 10/20 and 30 minute levels (double the normal length and more chips to boot) so it was my intention to play a very conservative game. I figured that most people wouldn't adjust well to this structure, being too aggressive and ending up playing big pots far too early. For the most part I stuck to this strategy until closer to the prizes when most people went a little too conservative, although in a satellite tournament with a flat prize structure this isn't too wrong. I actually get very few decent starting hands until deep into the tournament so the first few paragraphs are pretty boring. You can skip down to the later ones where more interesting things happen.

Not much happens for the first few dozen hands.. I do tight things like fold KJs to a limper, open fold 75s and 63s. The first hand I somewhat get involved with is hand #24 where I call 2 limpers and a raise with 98s and check/fold a JAQ flop. In the next 40 hands I get 88,77,22,44 and whiff on all of them except for winning with 22 in a four way shown that's checked down flop, turn and river. It's a pretty boring tournament so far. I finally pick up QQ, raise and get 4 callers!? Do they not see how tight I've been playing? I bet the 8J9 flop, get raised and reraise (a massive overbet push) and have to lay it down. Ugh. Down to 1805 now. It's still early with blinds 15/30 so not terrible yet but going in the wrong direction. I win a small pot with AQ to get back over 2000.

The blinds are up to 25/50 now and someone is doing idiotic things re-raising AKo all-in preflop with 50+ big blind stacks. Let's call this guy Pauly since he comes into play in every hand for the next little while. Lucky for him he's up against KK and obviously sucks out with an A on the river. The next hand I play (#93 - yes, quite a lot of folding.. I am both playing tight and getting no cards) I tangle with Pauly. I raise UTG to 150 with AKo, get a caller and the Pauly reraises to 750. I know if I jam here I'm getting called so I reluctantly fold and tell myself there's still plenty of time. At hand 104 I finally flop a set with TT and pick up some chips from Pauly, so I'm above my starting stack for the first time at almost 3000.

Blinds are now up to 50/100 and Pauly is still providing entertainment (and blog content). He's still got a big stack from the suckout, about 6000. It's folded to him in the SB and he jams vs the BB's 1000 stack. He's got K3o, and the BB calls with AA. No one is surprised when the flop comes 733. Although everyone is surprised when the river comes... A! Nice suck/resuck. I win a pot c-betting AQ on the flop, then lose a pot c-betting 77 on the flop. I flop a set of 44 vs Pauly and play it poorly, letting him off the hook by check raising all-in on the flop and he manages to somehow find a fold.

With blinds up to 75/150, I get some more chips off Pauly with this questionable play. I raise in mid position with TT, Pauly calls in the big blind. Flop is 347 rainbow. I bet, Paul calls. Turn 8. I push slightly more than the pot and he folds. I'm not sure what that push accomplishes since he calls with 56, a set, or an overpair and folds everything else. Or maybe he's the type of guy who would call with A7 there? Or a bare 5 or 6? Who knows. Anyway, we're 150 hands in now and I haven't seen AA or KK yet so I'm starting to feel I'm due soon. I win a small pot with AQ vs Pauly. Looking back at the record, it's amazing how many chips I've peeled off him. I think I can safely say I owe him for this win.

I build my stack up to 5000 with the blinds 100/200 by reraising all in with 44 to a mid position raiser. Image resteal there since I've been very tight. We're at hand 180 now and I've documented every hand I've played so far, which is not very much. Here's another pretty questionable play by someone else which I'm thankful for. UTG limps, I call with 22 in mid position and the big blind checks. Flop comes 6T9 with two hearts. Checked around. Turn is an off suit 8. Checked around again. River 2. Checked to me and I bet and get called by UTG's QQ. Score! I can't believe she didn't put any chips into the pot before the river. I fold AQ to another massive over push reraise and am at 6500. I get up to 7100 by reraising with AK and taking it down, then blind down to 6300. I steal the blinds with TT at hand #225.

At hand #230, I encounter the only peril I'd meet for pretty much the whole tournament. The button raises to 600, and I re-raise to 2000 with JJ in the SB. The big blind pushes and I hesitate before calling the rest of my 4300 chips. Luckily the BB has AK and I double up on a blank board. I'm finally in very good shape now with 13,000 chips and the blinds 100/200. I pick up some more re-raising with QQ vs a raiser and a caller. I lose a bit with 99 trying to pick up the pot on a KQ4 board but get raised off it, then win the blinds with AQ. 250 hands now and no sign of AA or KK yet, odd of this are like what, infinity to 1. Pick up another pot with AQ re-raising on the flop. So far no one's played back at my re-raising so things are going very well.

At hand 266 the table breaks. A shame since I've been the same table for the whole time and have pretty good reads on most people. 6 hands into the new table I play two hands which I'm very proud of. I've folded everything so far. The first hand, with the blinds 200/400, it's folded to 'Pwnasaurus' in the SB. He raises to 1000. I figure with a name like that he's pretty aggressive so I reraise all-in (to 9400) with 44 and he folds. The very next hand, he raises again to 1000 on the button. I have AQd in the SB and just call. I figure if I reraise him again I'm going to get called and I didn't want to flip for my stack just yet. It seems unlikely he'd be trying to steal after getting caught in the previous hand. Flop comes AT3 two spades. This was the perfect flop for me since I can represent a flush draw, a gutshot straight draw, or a pure bluff and can get called with pocket pairs or other semi-weak holdings. I check, he bets 1400 and I raise all-in. He thinks and thinks and thinks and finally calls with JT! My hand holds and I bust him. I resist the urge to type 'pwned!' in the chat window. I guess he really didn't believe my two all-ins in a row. I pick up a few more blinds preflop with 88 and QQ, fold AK to a raise and reraise, fold AJ to a raise. It's been a really long time since I've been playing deep stacks and so it feels odd to be folding things like that.

We hardly see a flop anymore since the prizes are in sight now. Blinds are 400/800 and we've been playing for 5 hours now. I can quickly tell who the really tight players are and start stealing their blinds at will, meeting absolutely no resistance. There are two of them in perfect position, one to my left and one 3 to my left. Unfortunately someone else to my right also picks up on it so they start stealing those blinds before I can get to them. I win preflop twice in 5 hands off the stealer by re-raising first with AA (finally!) and AK. I'm really surprised I didn't get called the second time since a) I thought he'd have something raising again so soon and b) he didn't think I'd have something re-raising him again. But whatever, thanks for the chips. This boosts me to 29k and pretty healthy with the blinds 400/800 and very tight play.

At hand #369 I have 30k chips and am probably in the top 16 with maybe 30 players left. A pretty quiet guy with 16k raises to 4k (blinds 400/800 still). Folded to me in the BB with JJ. I fold!?!? My thinking was with such a large raise, he's committing his stack so I'm not sure I want to flip or run into an overpair. I have a healthy stack and plenty of blinds to steal. I'm not used to this conservative style of folding JJ to a single raise but I think its the right move.

At hand #397 (600/1200) I make a really questionable play that I think could have cost me the seat. I have 32k and raise to 3000 with KQs in mid position. The button re-raises all-in for 11.5k. I have seen his name before at a final table of the Sunday million tourney (more than once I think) so I know he's good and observant. So he's seen me steal a lot, especially versus these blinds in particular. So there's about 15k in the pot and I have 8.5k to call. In a cash tourney it's an easy call since I'm easily getting the right odds vs his range of hands (any pair, probably almost any ace). But in this sort of satellite survival is the goal, not winning. I think for about a minute before my finger clicks the call button without me commanding it to do so. He has A6o and I fail to suckout. I'm down to 20k and not feeling great with the blinds 600/1200. My gut says it was the wrong thing to do, but I really wanted to defend my raises to make others things twice about re-stealing from me.

Less than 10 hands later, I pick up AA in mid position and raise to 3k. I get reraised all in by someone with 23k (like I said, no small pots around here) they hold up against AQ. So with 42k, I'm comfortably in the top 10 and coast to the seat, picking up the blinds with AQ twice, JJ and stealing a little here and there just to stay even. Play is really tight and conservative and takes about 70 hands to bust the last couple of people since no mid size stack is willing to play back with anything less than AK.