A Big Surprise (for some of you)!

I did a little something in the HORSE tournament yesterday. I was on a break and I started to write a post. This is what I wrote:

They say you never have so many chips that your victory in certain or so few that you're out of it. After being all in several times with very marginal hands and miraculously surviving, I went on a run. It's hard for me to recall hands from non hold'em games, so I can't say exactly how it happened, but I made the money! Not only that, but I'm in good shape.

I was looking to add a few specifics when the tournament resumed and I forgot all about my post. In fact I felt like I'd put it up on the blog and everyone knew I was still in it and in the money! Instead when the tournament concluded I saw my post sitting there waiting and realized nothing had gone up on the blog!

So what happened exactly? Well I went on a tear and went from fumes to an average stack with 100 players or so left. As we crossed the edge of the money which was 64th place I lagged a little and had about 22,000 chips when the average stack was 35,000.

And then I went on a major rush in the razz. The way the tournament was set up was the limits increased every 20 minutes, but the game switched every 10. So it was 10 minutes of Hold'em, 10 minutes of Omaha, then a limit increase, 10 minutes of Razz, 10 minutes of Stud, then a limit increase and so on. For the whole tournament it seemed like I didn't have any luck in the other 4 games, but when it got back to razz, I killed it!

I went from 22,000 for 50,000+ in a matter of minutes. The amount of money I was guaranteed jumped every 8 places to start. 64th to 57th paid $1,775, 56th to 49th paid $1,875, 48th to 41st paid $2,125, 40th to 33rd paid $2,625.

When we got down to 36 players I was in 9th place. I was all but positive that I'd make the next pay jump which was at 32 players, but I had my eye on the 24th to 17th place range. That paid $4,375 which was about what I needed to get even for the day.

I blasted right through it and by the time there were 17 of us left I was in 3rd place. In a no limit tournament you can go from the top few spots to out with one bad beat. The great thing about being ahead in a limit tournament is it takes more than one or two disastrous hands to get you in trouble.

It was looking good for me to make the final table. And that's just what I did! 8th place was $10,000 so I was guaranteed at least that much and since I was in 4th place (I think) it was likely that I'd do even better. There were two short stacks, one of them took that $10,000 prize and the other took $12,500 for 7th.

Meanwhile I was starting to pick up momentum. I wasn't nervous at all and I kept playing my normal aggressive game. On the other hand my opponents were playing timidly. The chips started piling up and the other players started to fade. Someone finished 6th and got $17,500. Before I knew it I was in first!

Playing 5 handed It looked like I was in good shape for at least 3rd place. I had something like 750,000 chips, another player had about the same, the player in third chip position had 500,000 or so and the other two guys had around 100,000.

Then I started to slip. I made a mistake here and there. I had a couple of big draws miss. I had a few big made hands get beat by bigger made hands. Two hands have stuck with me through the night. The first was in Razz where I started with A 2 3 4 as my first four cards (the best possible four card start) and ended up catching 3 bricks in a row and losing to someone who made a fairly weak hand. The second was in Omaha where I flopped top set which was the nuts on the flop and turn. Another player had a flush draw and a low draw and a card that made his low and his flush came on the river. These were both huge pots and losing them took a big chunk out of my stack.

Of course as the chips were flowing out of my stack, they were flowing into the stacks of my opponents. The short stacks went from almost dead to healthy again in what felt like no time.

I managed out outlast one more player who got $25,000 for 5th. I took down 4th place which paid $37,500! YAY!

This was an awesome result especially since I was in such bad shape in the middle of the tournament. Man do I love HORSE!

Totally Bamboozled!

I had this post all locked and loaded when I was down to about 1/4 of average in the $1,050 HORSE, but I've since stormed back to an average stack with 138 players left. 64 spots pay. Anyway here's what I wrote. I'll post again if I make the money, but otherwise you can assume I came up short.

I bricked in everything today! ACK! I was doing well in both HORSE tournaments for a while taking one to 3X my starting stack and the other to 2.5X. But then it was down, down, down the tubes. Not much to say other than that. Today just wasn't my day.

Tomorrow I have triple draw lowball (which I might skip) and heads up matchs all for pretty minor stakes.

SCOOP $3,150 NLH Recap

Doing a Recap shortly after the tournament starts is never a good sign! A few hands into the tournament I got dealt AQ of spades. The blinds were 25/50 everyone had pretty much the starting stack of 10,000 and I made a standard raise to 150. The small blind made it 450 to go and I just called. The flop came down low with two spades and my opponent bet out 80% of the pot. I considered raising, but opted to just call.

The turn was another small non spade and again my opponent made a near pot sized bet of 2,000. I certainly could have folded here, but I was getting 2 to 1 on my money, I knew a spade was good, an A or Q or both could be good and there was some non zero chance I had the best hand would win unimproved. So I called. The river was a total blank and my opponent moved all in. I said bye bye to 3,000 chips and folded.

About a half an hour later I had 6,000 chips left and open raised to 180 with 55. Three players called and the big blind raised to 660. I called as did everyone else. The flop came down 6 4 2 with two diamonds and the big blind bet out about 1,000.

I thought there was a fair chance he'd have big cards and that I could get rid of everyone else if I moved all in for a little more than 5K, and even if I did get called I'd have 2 shots at 6 outs. To my surprise the small blind moved all in for 20K and the big blind called him!

When the cards got turned over the small blind hand A7 of diamonds and the big blind had QQ. The turn was a 4 and the river was a 6 and the QQ took down a huge pot. It wouldn't have been crazy for him to fold QQ in this spot after my all in and the other all in from the small blind. If he'd folded I would have won.

In other news I'm on fumes in the $320 NLH, but I'm still in the $109 and $1,050 HORSE and doing OK.

SCOOP Event #7 Underway!

I've been looking forward to event #7 ever since the SCOOP schedule came out. It's HORSE day baby! The low stakes tournament is $109 and started with 2,674 entrants. This is in stark contrast to the daily $109 HORSE tournament that I've won 3 or 4 times which usually has about 50 entrants. Clearly almost everyone in this tournament should be out of their comfort zone. The edge of the money is 520th place and pays $118. First place is $43,452.

The medium stakes tournament is $1,050 and started with 444 entrants which was short of the number pokerstars needed to meet the $500K guarantee. There turned out to be a $33,800 overlay which is $76 a person. Nothing to scream about but it's $126 better than if they'd filled this one up. The edge of the money is 64th place and pays $1,775. First place is $95,000.

I found myself facing a bit of a quandry earlier today. With 30 minutes to go before the start of the $10,300 high stakes HORSE event there were only 29 people signed up. Pokerstars guaranteed a $750,000 prize pool and I found myself thinking "What the hell am I going to do if this thing goes off with 35 players and there is a $10,000+ per person overlay?" It would be like getting into a $20,000 tournament for $10,000, but I'd be playing against the world's best. Luckily enough players signed up at the last minute so I didn't have to think about it.

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.