Two Solid Finishes

I came back from vacation on August 12th ready to get back into my normal poker routine. I played a little on vacation, but it wasn't the type of play that generates many points. In fact I spent most of my time playing multitables, and oddly enough limit Omaha cash games and Razz (7-card stud where the worst hand wins) cash games. After a while I was feeling so good about my Razz play that I played about 250 hands of $30/$60 and won about $1,000!

Many people would say that Razz is one of the most boring games in the poker world, but I enjoy it. The thing I like about it most is there are so many situations that come up where you can be 100% sure that you have the best hand. For example after 3 cards if you have 3 cards 7 and below and someone is showing an up card 8 or higher you're ahead. On the next card even if they catch a 2 if you hit another good card you know for sure you're still ahead.

One thing people hate is when they start off with 3 or 4 great low cards and then catch a bunch of face cards. While this can be frustrating when it happens to me, I love it when it happens to my opponents. Sometimes weak players get so frustrated that they continue in a hand where they are totally dead just because they had a good hand on third street.

So with all that in mind, on Friday night I decided to play a $320 Razz tournament on Full tilt. They are in the midst of running a series of big tournaments much like the WCOOP (only much less significant and prestigious) which is the only reason they were able to run a $320 Razz tournament and get more than 3 people to sign up (normally $20is about the biggest Razz tournaments get and even then there's usually a very small field).

I'd already played a full day and the start time for the tournament was 6 pm. But since this type of tournament only comes along once every few months I decided to sit on the couch with my laptop, have a glass of wine, watch some Olympics and give it a go. I also jumped into "The Nightly Hundred Grand" on pokerstars which is a $162 tournament with a $100,000 guaranteed prize pool. Even though it had been a long day, I couldn't bring myself to play just one game at a time.

So after all that Razz talk I have to tell you that the Razz tournament was a total bust! I went broke about half way through that one, but I made the final table in the $162 tournament!

We started that tournament with about 750 players and I struggled for the first few hours. I was never in major trouble, but I never had a comfortable stack either. The tournament paid 90 spots and when we made the money I had about half of average. From that point on I played great in the small pots and poorly in the big ones. But sometimes you get lucky.

I got all my chips in when I was totally dominated at least 4 times that I can remember. The first one was just after we made the money. A player from middle position made a standard raise and I moved all in from the button with AT suited. I got called by AK and figured I was done. But I flopped a ten and doubled up.

When we were down to about 45 players I managed to get about 2/3 of my chips in with AJ vs KK. I flopped a J and turned another one giving my stack a nice boost.

A little later I once again had ATs against AK. The flop came AT2 and I doubled up again.

After all this great luck I was in good shape as we made the final table. 9th place paid about $1,500 so I was already looking at a nice score, but of course I had my eye on the $20,000 first place prize.

Unusually, everyone at the final table was very even in chips. In fact the chip leader only had twice as many chips as the player in 9th place! Normally when you make the final table there are a few short stacks and everyone plays pretty conservatively until they go broke since every spot you move up is big bucks. In this case 8th place paid $2,400 and I was happy to see the first person go broke after a very long half hour of final table play.

The player who finished in 8th place went broke and soon after I had my 4th miracle of the day. I was running a little short on chips and I moved all in with 44. I got called by QQ and figured I was done in 7th. The flop came 6 6 5 the turn was a 7 and the river was an 8 making me a straight! I was back baby!

That poor fellow soon went broke in 7th and took home $3,500 for his efforts. By this time is was well after midnight, and despite the fact that I'd started playing that day about 9 in the morning I was feeling surprisingly fresh.

We lost the 6th place finisher who got paid $4,600 and then we spent a long time playing 5 handed. We were all still pretty even and based on what I'd seen I liked my chances against my opposition. At that point two players got all their chips in: one with TT and the other with 33. The tens held up and I was happy to see the player with 33 get knocked down to about 45,000 chips. The blinds were 5,000/10,000 the rest of us all had more than 300,000 and I figured he'd be done in a hurry. Sadly I was wrong.

First he moved in with A5 and I called him out of the big blind with QT. He flopped an ace and was up to around 100,000 while I was down from about 350,000 to 300,000. A few hands later he moved all in with 99 and I called him with AQ. After no help for me we both had around 200,000. A few rounds later he moved all in from the button and I found myself with 66 in the big blind.

While his other all ins had been pretty standard moves, now that he had more chips moving all in was really excessive. I knew if he had a big hand he'd never put in all of his chips that way. If either of his cards was a 2,3,4,5, or 6 (18 of the 50 cards left in the deck) I be about 70% to win.

After some thought I decided to call and he turned over K5s which was just the kind of hand I hoped he'd have. Sadly the flop came with a K and I was done. The good news is I got paid $5,700 for 5th place!!! YAY!

One of the best things about winning is it usually leads to more winning. On Saturday I sat down feeling like even if I had a terrible day and lost a few thousand it would be ok. As a result I was feeling very relaxed and confident.

When I logged on to pokerstars about 9:30 in the morning I saw that a special tournament was going off at 10. They were running a $109 HORSE multitable as a test run for the structure they're going to use in the $10,000 HORSE event at this years WCOOP. This meant a looooooong tournament since we started with 25,000 chips and 30 minute levels. But since I was just starting play I figured I'd have the energy to play it all day if I had to.

For those of you who don't know HORSE is a combination of 5 forms of poker: (H)old 'em, (O)maha, (R)azz, 7 card (S)tud and Stud (E)ight or better (stud Hi-Lo split). We played each game in that order for 30 minutes and every time we switched to a new game the stakes increased slightly.

The thing I like about HORSE is I feel like I'm really good at all 5 games. Also having 5 different forms of poker adds significantly to the complexity of a tournament and any time you can make it more complicated it favors the stronger player. Stud Hi-Lo is probably my weakest of the 5 games, but I feel like there are very few experts in that game and even though it's my worst game I'm still way better than most of my opponents.

We started with 72 players and after about 7 hours I found myself in 3rd place as we started play at the 8 handed final table. Since this was a much smaller tournament that the one I described above the payouts weren't as exciting, but they were still significant. 8th place paid $360 and this time we did have a few short stacks who quickly went broke.

We started the final table playing Omaha and I struggled a little, but once we got the the Razz I started kicking major ass. By the time the half hour of Razz was over we were down to 5 and I was in first. During the half hour of 7 card stud I built my lead. At the end of that half hour while we were still playing 5 handed, but I had as many chips as all of my opponents combined!

In the Stud Hi-Lo I dropped the hammer and busted three of my 4 opponents leaving one player left. I had about 1.5 million chips and he had 200,000. 2nd place paid $1,440 and 1st was $2,160 so we were playing heads up for a little over $700.

I figured since we were going back to hold'em soon I'd make quick work of my last opponent and call it a day. But I was in for much more of a battle. We were playing FAST. I'm talking 5 or 6 hands a minute fast. And we played about 10 minutes of Stud Hi-Lo, the whole way through the half hour of hold 'em and into the Omaha before we were done. This was a TON of hands.

As soon as we started the hold-em my opponent started picking up a ton of great hands. He got AA at least 3 times and kept making 2 pair with garbage hands. Soon we were even and at one point he took the lead with about 1,000,000 chips to my 700,000 chips. That was only for a moment and I took the lead right back. It seemed like I'd get him down to 400,000 and then he'd always climb back up.

We stated the Omaha about even, but he clearly had no clue how to play heads up Omaha and I blew him out of the water in no time. I knew I was having a good run, but wasn't really looking at our stacks. Then all of a sudden I won a HUGE pot and saw he was down to 40,000. The next hand it was over.

I know I won much more money in the hold'em tournament, but there's something very special about finishing in 1st. Also I love doing well in HORSE tournaments. It makes me feel like a very well rounded player. It's certainly been a sweet two days!

Also my sister in law and avid blog reader Kristen was here and took 5% of my action in the HORSE. It was nice to be able to shoot her a $100 bill and share some profits for once!