Triple Shootout Results

I was the first person out at any table in the second round! CRAP! I lost half of my chips with a three barrel bluff (a bet on every round) that started as a semibluff. The other half went in the 88 vs AA on a 2 5 6 board. Oh well.

Tomorrow is a big day. I have $109 and $1050 HORSE in the morning and $320 and $3,150 no limit hold 'em in the afternoon.

SCOOP Update!

Todays Omaha tournaments (Event #6) were really bad. I've forgotten what happened in the low, but I was out before the add-on losing $42.

In the medium I forgot to rebuy immediatly and won the first pot so then I had too many chips to rebuy. But I ran my starting stack of 2,500 up to 4,000 or so. Then I got most of those chips in with a straight draw and a pocket pair vs two pair. I had two shots at 10 outs and missed. I lost my remaining 600 chips on the next hand.

I still had a rebuy left so I rebought and got another 2,500 chips. On the very next hand I got it all in with AAxx vs 89TJ and lost. This tournament only lasted 20 minutes for me! On the positive side I went broke before the add-on so I only lost $415.

In other bad news I played 4 satellites and missed in all of them. They were pretty low stakes attempts to win my way into the $3,150 NLH event tomorrow so it's not too surprising that I came up short. The total damage there was $295.

The good news is I made it past the first round of the $162 triple shootout which means I'm in the money!

I got off to a good start and had my 5,000 starting stack up to 8,000 or so right away. Then I sat on it for about 90 minutes. By that time we were down to 3 players and I was up to 10,000 chips and just thinking about getting it heads up (anything can happen heads up!). I worked my stack up to 14,000 by the time there were just two of us, but my opponent had 36,000 so it wasn't looking good.

My opponent was playing too tight for heads up and I slowly built my stack to 22,000 when the key hand of the tournament came up. The blinds were 100/200 and my opponent made it 500 to go from the small blind which was his standard raise. With A8 I made it 1,600 and he made it 4,500. Looking back I should have folded here, but I called instead. I get a little impatient playing heads up with very deep stacks and sometimes I force the action which is actually exactly what I did on the flop.

The flop came down T 7 6 giving me a gutshot straight draw and one overcard. I knew if I cheked my opponent would bet no matter what he had. He bet 5,000 into the 9,000 chip pot and I decided to go for it. I had 17,000 left which I thought was enough that I might get him off a better hand like AJ, AQ or AK or a pocket pair below 6 and even if I got called I knew hitting a 9 would make me a winner. If he had a big ace then hitting my 8 would be good, and if he had a big pocket pair as long as it wasn't aces hitting an ace would be good.

So I moved all in and he instantly called me with KK. Yikes! I was actually 30% to win at this point and feeling hopeful. The turn was a 5 which meant I was now 25% to win with one card to come. Happily the river was a 9 and I had a commanding lead. A few hands later I got the rest of his chip with A9 vs A4. Interestingly I won this shootout without elminating anyone except for the last player! That's pretty rare.

I'm guaranteed a $577 payout, but that's the most I can make unless I win the next round. At the final table however each spot pays a different (large!) amount.

SCOOP Event #5 Underway!

Event #5 M is a $162 NLH Triple shootout. That means we start with 1,000 players at 100 tables of 10 players. Those tables play until only one player is left at each table. Once all the tables have only one player left, those 100 players are put at 10 tables of 10 and the process repeats. When there are only ten players left they are put at the final table and play it out for the title. If you win your first table you're in the money which pays $577. Winning the second round is worth at least $2,100 and first place is $27,400. Given the "small" field this might be my best chance to win a tournament outright. In fact at the WCOOP last year I won my first table and got it down to heads up in round two before I blew a major chip lead! It was heart breaking.

Event #5 L is similar except since the buy in is only $16.50 there is another round and we stared with 9,000 players instead of 1,000! 1st place in that one is a similar $24,800, but you have to beat 9 times as many players to get it!

Event #6 is Pot Limit Omaha and the medium stakes tournament is my first sizable tournament of the series. It's $215 with one rebuy and one add on so basically $615.

The Total So Far

After two days of Scooping (There was also a little satellite action before these two days), I'm stuck $70.50 in the low tournaments, winning $269 in the medium stakes and losing $294 in the satellites (I made the money in two of nine). So my $15,000 MHS bankroll stands at $14,975. Like I said before, these first few days are pretty much warm up.

In other news I've decided for sure that I'm going to play the $5,200 6 handed limit SCOOP event (it's towards the end of the series) even if I can't win my way in via satellite. I just can't pass up a major tournament in my specialty. The difference between 6 handed limit play and 9 handed limit play is pretty vast as is the difference between tournament play and cash game play. I don't think there are too many people anywhere who have the combination of expertise and experience in all the aspects that will come into play in this one event. So while shelling out five grand for one tournament is still more than I really feel comfortable with, I just can't pass up this opportunity.

SCOOP Event #4 (M) Recap

This tournament was the antithisys of the draw tournament. Since things escalated quickly it was great fun. Shortly after my last post I ran my stack up to 25,000 chips or so and then went a little card dead. In a tournament with 5 minute limits even a short run of bad cards and be a death sentence. As we got close to the money I had to put on the stall taking as long as possible to act whenever it was my turn so enough people would be eliminated before I was blinded off.

But I made the money! YAY! A few hands after we made the money the blinds were 3,500/7,000 and I was down to 11,000 chips in the big blind. Since way more than half my chips were already in the pot I had to go with whatever cards I got. It just so happened I got 63! YUCK! And two people moved all in in front of me! ACK!

Amazingly I made the best hand. The both had Ax hands, the flop was 5 3 2 giving me the best hand, the turn was a 4 making me way the best hand and the river was a blank. All of a sudden I was up to something like 40,000.

A few hands later I got dealt AQs, got it all in vs JJ and was up to 90K. I peaked at around 110,000 and then I made a thin call. Average was around 150K, the blinds were something like 7K/14K and the cutoff moved all in for about 100K. I had 55 on the button and after some thought I decided to go for it. To my shock and horror the big blind called with 99 and my first opponent turned over AA. I was left with 5K or so and was out on the next hand.

The good news is I finished 153rd of 2,887 which paid $754.

The bad news is I played a few more satellites some of which were not small. I'll add up the total sometime today or tomorrow and let you know the exact numbers. I think I'm losing a little bit overall, but not more than a few hundred.

SCOOP Update

I went broke in the Event #4 (L), but I'm doing OK in the medium stakes. This was a "Turbo" tournament meaning the blinds go up every 5 minutes instead of every 20 or 30. As a result, 90 minutes in and on the first break, we're down to 1,080 from 2,900 entrants. I have 10,800 chips which is a little more than half of average.

The edge of the money is 414th which pays $367 and first place is $103,000.

SCOOP Event #4 underway!

Event #4 (L) $16.50 "2X Chance" started with 14,496 players and after an early miscue I had to use my one rebuy.

In event #4 (M) which started with 2,887 players I'm about where I started with just over 5,000 chips.

They haven't put up the prizes yet. I'll post an update if I go broke or triple up.

5-Card Dud

Man does 5 card draw suck! Every now and then I think to myself "Maybe I'll play a little draw!" Then I do and I am reminded why draw is dead. It is so boring! And on top of that it requires to much thought and focus for me to play well.

I gave it all I had in the $109, but I ran into THREE full houses! The first time I had a straight, the second time I had trips, and the third time I was short stacked and had two pair.

In the $11 I had to bail. It was making me crazy. It had been two hours and there were a few hours to the money which was only $12 at the edge. So I got super aggressive in an effort to either build a huge stack or go broke quickly. Not surprisingly it was the latter.

SCOOP Event #3 Underway!

SCOOP event #3 is PL five card draw with the low stakes being $11 (which started with 4,300 players) and the medium stakes being $109. There's good news and bad news and more good news. The good news is they guaranteed $100,000 in the prize pool of the $109 tournament and there are only 756 entrants. This means pokerstars had to add $17,600 to the prize pool. The bad news is I don't know much about playing 5 card draw! The good news is almost no one else does either!

The biggest weekly 5 card draw tournaments are in the $20 range (They normally have something like 50 players), there are never more than a handful of cash games going, and those are all for small stakes. That means no one really has much experience with this game.

Hopefully I can get some good cards and use my tournament experience and skills from other games to wade my way through.

Brick City!

I came up short is all 4 of my SCOOP tournaments today. The only one in which I sniffed the money was the $5 with rebuys and I went down the tubes with KK vs 99 so there wasn't much I could do.

The Omaha tournaments were a total bust. I was out in less than 90 minutes in both. I know how to play pot limit Omaha and limit Omaha Hi-Lo, but I have to admit that I don't feel really comfortable with pot limit Omaha Hi-Lo. It's just a wierd game. Frankly I don't know why anyone plays it.

The good news is I won a $32 satellite to a $320 SCOOP event. So when you factor in the -$109 for the earier satellite, the -$105 for the $55 with rebuys and the -109 for the Omaha (M), my MHS bankroll (Medium/High/Satellite - basically my backer bankroll) only took a $35 hit. My low bankroll took a $26.50 hit.

Today was pretty insignificant as far as the sereis goes. It was really almost like a prologue. In fact the first 5 events are pretty much warm up.

Tomorrow I have $11 and $109 Pot Limit 5-card draw in the morning (that's going to be an adventure!) and $16.50 and $162 NL hold'em 2x chance in the afternoon.

The 2X chance format is interesting. Basically the way it works is if you go broke during the first hour you can buy another starting stack for the same amount as the initial buy in, but otherwise there are no rebuys and it plays just like a regular tournament.

Looking at the schedule Sunday is really going to be key. That day I have $1,050 HORSE, $320 NLH and $3,150 NLH. One way or another that day is probably going to be really good or really bad.