Wow. I can't believe how long it's been since I have written. I failed to write about my wins last year. I won two ladies tournaments and cashed in a 6 max at the Beau. There were so many hands that I could have written about from those nights that I can no longer remember in enough detail to write about today. Ugh... Lessons not learned, because if I don't remember them then they don't serve me. Having said that, let's talk about today.
I have not been playing very much. A year ago I played pretty much as often I could get out of Baton Rouge down to the Beau Rivage to play. Lately, it's hit or miss. I rarely play a cash game anymore. Well, today was the St. Patrick's Day parade and since I am still paraded out and the BR had their $15,000 guarantee it seemed like a great time to take the day to Biloxi!
I entered the $235 event. It started at noon and we arrived shortly after the tournament started. My starting stack of 8,000 had been whittled down by a few blinds, so no big deal. Of course like any player who arrives late to the game I said hello to everyone who addressed me, came in for a raise, and took down the first pot on the flop. Why is this? Every time there is a seasoned player that comes late to a tournament, you can almost always expect them to look down at the first hand and fall in love with it. I see it all the time. I say that I am immune to this style of thinking. And that's about the time I found myself throwing the raise into the pot. Duh.
The day started out like any other day. I won some pots. I lost some pots. I bluffed some pots. I got caught bluffing some pots. Nothing exciting. I sat up in my chair with my Beats headset, listened to my tunes, and studied my opponents. Some of the players I already knew and that meant that I knew what to expect from them. Others didn't take long to figure out and I simply waited for an opportunity to use the information that I was collecting. Then our table broke and I was moved to another table. And it all started again.
There was one player in particular at the opposite end of the table from me. I had my immediate judgments about his skill level. He had a lot of chips. I was certain that he had acquired most of those chips because of some fluke and certainly not because he was particularly good. As I continued to watch, I noticed more and more that I was correct. This was truly the guy who would dump his chips off to me. But then he started dumping chips to other players. He got short stacked. He went all in. I snap called with my JT. He turned up AA. I doubled him up and thought, "Of course he has AA against me when he has something stupid against everyone else." He collected a few more chips. I kept noticing that he WAY overplayed top pair and even second pair. So I just waited. And waited. and waited. Finally he was short stacked again, and he shipped it. This time I had 77 when I snapped his preflop all-in. He turned up Ac6c. The flop came down. I saw a 7 in the window and I thought, "Finally, he doesn't get me." Then as the dealer spread the flop I realized there was an A under the door card and a 7 right behind that. I had flopped QUADS. This guy stood up knowing that he now needed to go A on the Turn and A on the river in order to win. Fail! I win. He goes home and I get his teeny tiny stack added to mine. This was such a bittersweet victory. His stack was so small because he had already donked off all the other chips he had earlier that I was trying to get from him. Anyway, target gone... I needed to pick out a new ATM.
The spot on my right gets filled by a guy I play with a lot named Mo. He knows me and how I play as I do him. I am so excited to see him come to the seat on my right. I am usually unlucky enough to get him on my left where he has the advantage at outplaying me. Not today. Today it's my turn, baby! So he raises from the button, unchallenged. I have pocket 55's in the sb and call. It's just me and him. The board doesn't scare me. I fully expect him to have an unpaired hand. My plan here is to check-call him the whole way. I check. He bets. I call. Then the Turn. I check. He bets. I call. The river. I check. He is about to bet.... but thinks better of it and checks behind. I win. Ok, Mo, we are off to a good start. It happens again later. This time I have 77. He is slowly sending his chips right from his stack into mine and I am a happy camper about this. I work my stack up to 25,000 at the break.
Now for the hand that undoes me. We started the tournament with 90 players. Blinds are 100/400/800. I am in the small blind with 9T. Everyone folds around to Mo who is on the button. I expect him to raise here an he obliges with a raise to 2400. I call. The big blind who is a nit also calls and this gives me some concern. The flop is 6s Th 2s. With top pair and potentially the best hand of the three of us I check with the expectation that Mo will c-bet and I will raise. After I check the bb debates... WAIT... what is he doing? Is he thinking of making a bet? No. The way this is supposed to go is he checks, Mo bets, I raise, and old man in the bb folds. So why is he contemplating a bet. What does he have? He checks. Mo makes his cbet of about 2300. I make my checkraise to 6500. And the bb... well he does not instamuck and I had expected. Instead he .... what? ... he calls? Why is he calling? "Crap, I think to myself. He must have AT or KT." The action moves to Mo who acts like he is thinking of shipping it, but I know better. He eventually folds leaving me with nitty BB. The turn was a 2. I check. He checks behind!!!! Now I know what he has. He absolutely has AT or KT. But he SHOULD be betting here. He should be trying to push me away from a flush draw or at least trying to find out what kind of hand I have. I could have 66 or 62 or 22 or T6 or T2 or JJ or 99. The truth is, he has no idea what I have here and I feel like I have the power in the hand because I absolutely know what he has. He may as well just turn his cards face up, because he is screwed. Now I just have to get the outcome that I want. The river comes down a spade. YAY! I couldn't have been happier if I had actually made a flush, because I know that my play tells the story of a possible flush or full house hand. Now, I just have to make him believe it. I decide that a bet of 5000 should be small enough that I still have something to work with if I lose the hand but big enough for him to fold. It should also look like a bet that I want to have called. I mean, if I have a full house or a flush here, I am totally betting about 5000 here anyway. So the bet makes sense with the story I am telling. He counts out the chips for the call and thinks about it. Now if he calls and loses he only has about 2100 left in his hand. He won't survive more than 1 orbit with that so, surely he can't call unless he thinks he has the best hand. He can't afford it. In fact, if he thinks he has the best hand, he should go on and go all in here to maximize his win. But if he thinks for even a second that I hit that flush on the river or the deuce on the turn for a set then he MUST FOLD. Because it would be absurd to make the call just to see that you are right and yes you did lose the hand. BUT this guy is not astute enough as a player to make this fold. And after much deliberation, he calls. Just a call. Not an all in. His play here is terrible. Yes he wins the hand and stacks all those chips in the pot but imho he did not play the hand correctly at any point... not preflop, not postflop, not at all. Alas, I am left with about 9900 and have only a couple of options. I few hands later my stack is a tad smaller. Mo makes his button raise to 2300. I ship it for an additional 6500 and he calls with a weak Ace. I had QJ. The board ran out A55Arag and I was done.
Moral of the story? Well, I liked my play with the 9T. Yes I could have folded the hand pre-flop, but that's no fun. There are some people that I want to play against as often as I can and Mo is one of those players. And he does the same to me. He and I can be very imaginative with our starting hands when we play each other.
As for me, I am plotting when my next trip down to Biloxi might be.... we shall see.
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