Event #8 ($215 HORSE) Recap

The HORSE tournament started off with 1798 players and a first place of $79,112. I'd been looking forward to this tournament for a while since it something much different than I normally play. I wrote this entire blog as I went along so if things seem a little disjointed that's why. Also you'll notice that I referenced WAY more hands than usual, but in less detail.

The first level was hold 'em as was totally unremakable even though I managed to take my chips stack from 2500 up to about 3,000. But, once we got to Omaha I picked up a few good hands. With limits at 30/60 I picked up A 10 6 3 3 of us put in 90 chips before the flop. I was happy with the first three board cards, 6 9 7 with 2 hearts. I had the second best low draw and the nut flush draw so I bet. I got raised and just called. When the turn came out the K of hearts I bet again. I had the best possible high hand and was surprised when I got raised. I reraised and my opponent put in the 4th bet (which is the maximum number of raises). The river was the 5 of hearts and again we went 4 bets. Clearly this guy had not played much Omaha. He turned over a king high flush and no low and I scooped the pot. I was up over 3500.

A few hands later I had Q 3 8 5 with the 8 5 of spades in the big blind. This is a fairly weak hand, but I called a raise out of the big blind hoping to catch hit right away or get out of there. The flop came down 6 7 j with the 67 of spades and I decided to be bold and bet. I imediatly got raised. Whoops. I called and the turn was the 4 of spades! YOOOOO, STRAIGHT FLUSH! We got 4 bets in on the turn and 3 more on the river which was a 2. When the cards got turned over my opponent showed that he'd made an ace high flush and no low. SHIP IT! This pot took me up to 4,300 chips.

On the second hand of the razz section I stared with 456, made a 6542A and got action all the way taking me to 4700 chips. Then I made a 65432 against someone who pushed an A that was showing (with a 10 in the hole) and made an 8 low. Shortly after I started with A35 against 643. By the end of the hand I had a wheel and he had a 6543A. After an hour and a half, I was in 7th of 1751.

When the stud potion started I made tens full against nines full on the third hand and moved up to 6505 and stood in second place behind one player who had 6506! Then I got totally jobbed for the rest of the stud section. It seemed like I was in every hand making just enough to be forced to trail along and never improving. When I did improve I kept running into full houses. SHIT! I was still in good shape back at 4700 and in the top 150, but starting to get a little frustrated.

After the second break I came back and scooped two big pots with Aces up and a flush. But then I blew back all of those chips after missing a slew of low draws. On one hand my first 5 cards were A2569 with 4 spades. I missed my flush and made a 7 low which lost to a better 7 low. I don't recall ever feeling so much like I was getting killed when I still had 1.5 times the average stack. It was very strange.

The next hold'em level was uneventful, but once we got back to Omaha I made some serious progress. I started with A K 10 2, made a king high flush and scooped a nice pot. On the next hand I won the low half of the pot when I made the nut low. A few hands later the chip leader of the entire tournament raised to 300 from late postion. I called with AKJ7 out of the small blind. This guy was super loose and I thought he could have anything. The flop came down KK7. BINGO! FULL HOUSE! I checked and called as a slow play. Then the turn came out and it was the fourth K! This time I check raised and he reraised me! I had the nuts so I made it 4 bets and he folded. Two hands later I made aces full and won another pot. All of a sudden I was in 65th of 950 with a stack that was twice average (9,300). I thought Omaha was my worst game of the 5? What the hell was going on?

It took 4 hours to lose half of the field which I found a little surprising. Over the next hour I bounced around a fair amount dropping as low as 6500 and as high as 10,600. Then I lost a pot to this total nut job who had been playing almost every hand in every game but was in fact in 1st place in the whole torunament for a while. During the second stud section, I started with 10 J J and he started with 6 9 in the hole and an A showing. The limits were 300/600 and he raised the bring in to 300. I decided to just call and one other player with a Q showing also called. On 4th street I caught a 5 and the bad guy caught a Q and bet. I knew this card didn't help him because two of the other Q's were already gone so I raised to get rid of the other player. And...he reraised me with no pair! I called and on 5th street I caught a 9 and he caught a 4. Again he bet with no pair and I called. On 6th street he caught an A and I caught a 7. I considered folding to the open aces and I probably should have, but the pot was huge and I thought a J or and 8 would make me the best hand. On the river I made two pair and so did he by catching a 4. I was back down to 7,000 going into the stud-8 section.

About half way through the stud-8 section I had the 120 chip bring in with a 2 showing. I had A 8 in the hole and called when someone with a 4 showing raised to 400. I caught a low card on 4th street, an ace on 5th and a Q on 6th and the river. My opponent made a smaller two pair and paid me off the whole way. At the start of the hold 'em section I was up over 11,000 chips with about 370 players left and an average stack of around 12,000.

During the third hold 'em section I picked up a good number of chips, when I made trips against top pair. Also, I won two pots out of the big blind when I called late position raises with Q5 suited and K8. I flopped a straght draw with the Q5 and then paired the Q. With the k8 I check raised the flop and bet the turn as a bluff with a board of 10 7 3 3 and my opponent surrendered. Going back into the Omaha I was up over 20,000.

After the first two tries at Omaha went so well I had high hopes for the third. With limits of 750/1500 this was getting serious. Unfortunately I blew off some chips on a bluff, went through the blinds a few times and found myself with around 13,000 chips when we went on the 15 minute dinner break. I was in 147 of 213 needing to get down to 176 to make the money.

I put on the major stall during the razz so every hand would take as long as possible and give players at other tables a chance to go broke. With 177 players left (1 short of the money) I was dealt 2 4 5 and raised the 300 chip bring in to 1,000. I got called by a player with an 8 up card and raised by a player with a A showing. On 4th street I caught another 5 and my opponents caught big cards. We all checked. On 5th street I caught a 3 which was a great card and I bet. One player folded and the 3rd street raiser called. On 6th street I caught a K, he caught a big card and we both checked. On the river I caught another K making my best hand a K high. Yuck! After catching 2 kings when all I needed was some kind of low card, I decided my only way to win was a bluff. So I bet 2000 into the 14,900 chip pot. My opponent thought for about 15 seconds and called with a 9 high.

I made the money, but with only 4,000 chips. Since the antes were 300 on every hand, clearly I was looking for any kind of hand to get in there. When I got down to about 3000 I picked up KK7 and beat someone who started with a pair of Q's. Counting the antes that I picked up I was up to about 8,500.

I made it up to almost 20,000 when I made a straight against someone who had two pair. While this seemed like a lot of chips the limits were 2000/4000 so it was only 5 big bets. When we switched to stud-8 I picked up KKQ which is a great hand in regular stud, but marginal hand in stud-8. But, it was plenty good to go with, given my short stack status and the fact that we'd just moved up another pay level. I started the hand with about 17,000 and raised the bring in to 2,000. I got action from THREE other players who all looked to be on low draws. The pot got HUGE fast and there was no way I could fold. By the end, one of the low draws made a flush and eliminated me from the tournament.

I finished in 102nd place which paid $539.40, 8 hours and 10 minutes after the tournament started. This is the third longest amount of time I've ever spent playing an online tournament. I feel pretty good about this event and my solid finish helped get the bad taste out of my mouth that I had after the other event I played today.