Wednesday, January 12, 2005


The update you've all been waiting for... Shana! Posted by Hello

Saturday, January 08, 2005

Allen's Hand

Sorry, forgot to mention that Allen had AKs when he busted me out.

One final note

I think I was out 180th out of 461. Not too bad for my first time in a live tournament.

I'm out

Well, here comes the post I didn't want to write.

I started out with about 26k in chips. My game plan was to loosen up a bit, see more flops and take shots at short stacks if possible. The deck continues to hit me over the head for the first few hands. Reraise with AK and take it down preflop. Raise with AJ and take down the blinds and antes. Limp with KJs after one limper, flop top two and take it down on the turn. I build my stack up to about 40k. It quiets down for awhile until one woman going all in for a few hands in a row. She goes in with K8o, gets called by AA and flops trip 8's. Her stack is maybe 20k or so now, but she continues to play a lot of pots and goes all-in pre-flop or post flop.

And then comes the first big hand. Early raise, 3 cold callers, I have 87s on the button so what the heck. It's only 1500 to call. Flop comes Js, 5s, 9h. Raiser checks, the all-in woman bets 2000, two cold callers drop, I think for a bit and raise to 7000 hoping for a free card. Raiser folds. The woman goes all in. It's about 10k more to call, so I definitely have pot odds and have to call. I figure she's got a 9 or a J. But no, she has KTo. I'm stunned. One less than the most possible outs since she has one of the tens I need. Turn 9, river A. I'm down to 21k-ish. Still workable.

I take it easy for an orbit or two to keep my composure.

Then, with blinds 300/600+100 Allen Cunningham raises to 1800 UTG. I look down at QQ, and I don't think I can let it go. I'm sure he'd raise with AA, KK, AK, QQ, JJ. I raise it to 5k. He asks for my stack count, then pushes in. I beat him into the pot with a call. Flop comes 3 low cards, but I still can't start breathing yet. Turn comes the dreaded A. I get up, dazed.

I think it's going to be difficult to get my mind off these hands for awhile, but I don't think I would have played them differently. I'll be quite a bit of work to enjoy the rest of the vacation here, but I'll try my best.

I'll see everyone back at home...

Table Draw, Day 3

Table 9, seat 5. I'm the fourth largest stack at the table with 3 others in the 30k range. Only player I recognize is Allen Cunningham. A couple of smaller stacks in the low 10k range. Not too bad.

Friday, January 07, 2005

After the first day

Man, I'm beat and it's only 10pm. I sure felt myself slipping after 9 hours of poker. Luckily the cards have been running very good and I'm up to 26,575 now. I have not had bluff (much) and I have only showed down two hands vs. all-ins. AA and AJs. We'll redraw for tomorrow so I can't take advantage of my tight image anymore.

First hand after the dinner break, blinds 100/200+25 I started out with AJs, raised early to 600 and got reraised all-in by 77 all-in with less than 1000. Off to the races and I turn a flush on him.

Second hand I raise with AQo and steal the blinds and antes.

Third hand I raise UTG+1 to 600 with red kings and figure someone's going to look me up now. Sure enough the really aggressive huge stacked bully calls me. Flop comes Axx with two to a suit. Well, I figure I'll play it like AK protecting against a flush draw. I check, he bets 1500 and I check raise to 5000. He lays it down after a few seconds thought. Phew. That puts me at 20,000 and I decide I better slow down.

Not much happens for while.. the bully goes to battle a couple of times with a 10k stack or so, who gets really lucky by doing things like hitting a gutshot all-in and hitting two pair with his A9 vs. AKs. He is very re-aggressive, reraising all-in a few times and either not getting callers or making hands.

Seat 3 is somewhat of a revolving seat. There are still 7 of us from the original 10 still at the table since the beginning of the day, but seat 3 has gone through 5 people already. Cursed, we decide.

With blinds and antes growing to 200/400+75 the short stacks get really tight and the big stack gets really aggressive - it seemed like only once he doesn't open raise, but no one has the guts to take a shot. Must be nice to have 52k or so.

I make a couple of "loose" plays like calling a raise and cold caller (although that Mr. bully) with ATs in the big blind, and manage to flop top pair with the T. I bet out 5k and the bully folds, saying it was push or fold. I would have been left with 10k if I folded so I'm not sure if I would have called a push. Tight image helps I guess.

So I'm probably in decent shape now, maybe in the top 1/2 or top 1/3 of the field. We'll pay again with about 270 people so it'll be another slogging day tomorrow. I've been really happy with my play, although most of the hands have played themselves and I haven't needed to make any fancy plays yet. Conserve and survive again. Hope it continues tomorrow!

The poker hunch Posted by Hello

Dinner break, day 1

16975 in chips (started with 10,000). Blinds going to be 150/300+50 ante. We started the day with about 260 people and are down to 190 I think.

I was really nervous and it showed at the beginning. I was hoping people would mistake it for shaking hands = big hands.

It was during the first level I managed to get most of my chips. First 4 out of 5 hands I had Ax and had to fold since I was in mid/early position. However, on the fifth hand, the x was a T and I was in the big blind. One limper to me. Flop comes AKT. I bet, limper calls. Turn brick. I bet, limper calls. Same on the river. I think I was too cautious here, and just bet a small fraction of the pot. Limper calls and turns over AJ and I win the first pot. It turned out this guy won his way in via the rebuy sat last night and was terrible. He shortly got crippled later when he called a check raise all-in with A9 and the board 578. Like the guy next to me said, no one else here could have made that call. I have 12k or so.

7th hand of the tournament. Folded to me on the button, I look down at pocket kings. Raise to 200. BB reraises to 2000. I start panicking about busting out on the 7th hand of the tournament, so I call. I decide to see if an A comes on the flop. Flop comes T84. BB bets out 2000. I start to think.. does he have aces? Does he have aces? Argh.. I don't know how long I took, but it must have been 3-4 minutes. People started asking how long we could wait to think.. you can think for as long as you want, but someone can call a clock on you. Then you have 1 min 10 seconds left to think. Anyway, I decide screw it.. if it's Aces so be it. All-in. The guy thinks for a sec, then says i'd have called if you didn't do through that acting job. He folds and gets really pissed off. I wasn't acting though, I was seriously just not wanting to bust out so early. I caught up to him later and he said he had QQ and figured the only thing he could beat was JJ. Good laydown on his part. So I end up with 16,000 or so.

From there not much happens... up and down between 12k and 18k. A really young kid who won't tell us his pokerstars name builds up a stack to 25k or so with really agressive play and really good cards.

On the third level or so, I get AQh in the cut off. UTG raises 3x BB. He's pretty tight so I decide to call and see a flop. In retrospect, a really bad idea. Flop comes Qxx all black. He bets about 1/3 of his stack for 2000. Man.. I hit the flop and I think I make an too tight laydown. I'm happy with my 16000 and don't want to turn it into 10k. Too tight? Probably, but ah well.. probably should have reraised pre flop or something to see where I was.

Anyway, Gloria was nice enough to bring me dinner. Time to eat and I'll check in after the day is done.

Table 1, Seat 9

Fortunately no one famous I recognize at the table. I was somewhat looking forward to watching them see right through all the players though, including myself.

Results from Day 1 (not me)

Looks like the final chip counts are in from Day 1. 201 entrants, with 116 remaining. They had to play extra time to get the numbers down to a managable level for Saturday (Day 3). Today, 225 players (including yours truly), for a total of 426 entrants. That's a pretty sizable field to get through, and some pros have busted out already. It looks like they'll need to get the field down by 1/2 or more today so wish me luck! :) The official chip count can be found here:

Official Standings after Day 1
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