I’ve gone 0/5 so far and am not really too fussed. I’m pretty happy with the way I’ve been playing and with tournament poker you can’t ask for more than that.
The last event I entered was the 10k pot-limit hold’em championship. The tables were quite tough overall, but every table I was at featured at least 1 or 2 good spots to get chips.
My opponent put me all in with air
I doubled up towards the end of day one with a set of 7’s, where I made a weak lead at the river and my opponent put me all in with air (that always feels good). For those interested, the hand went like this:
I raised to 2000 with 77 UTG+1 with ~27k at 400/800, the button called as did the small blind (both had me covered).
The small blind was a young guy from Germany who had been playing pretty tight, but talked a very big game. The flop came QhJh7d. It was checked to me and I bet 3400, only the small blind called. The turn came about as bad as possible, the 10h, and we both checked. The river came a Q, giving me the boat and he checked to me.
At this point, I was hoping to get a call but also thought there was some chance he might try and represent something big on the board. So I made a smallish bet of 5.5k hoping to look like a weak value bet that he could come over the top of. He obliged and pushed in. I made the call and he mucked.
I fired 2 barrels and got raised
Day 2 started off badly with me losing a pot where I fired 2 barrels and got raised. From then on I basically just hung around for a few levels waiting for a good spot to get it in against one of the two poorer players at the table.
A good opportunity came up at the 800/1600 level when a middle aged Spanish? (maybe South American) guy on a very big stack raised to 5000 from middle position on my big blind. My stack was 34k and I looked down at two black 10s and made it 15k.
In no-limit I’d almost always jam there, but I thought it would look stronger if I raised and jammed the rest on the flop as opposed to re-potting it. I suppose it’s basically the same thing though.
The flop came a very ugly AQ3 rainbow. But I can’t change my plan at this point, so I jammed the rest in anyways. He thought for a while and eventually called turning over the KJ – much to my surprise and delight. Unfortunately, he caught a J on the river. Oh well, would’ve liked my position with about 60 left there.
I’ve resumed eating spicy food
Vegas otherwise has been pretty good, a few of my friends arrived during the week and a few more get here on the weekend. Also, I’ve resumed eating spicy food but haven’t yet challenged or upset any waiters/waitresses so I haven’t been made to suffer again.
Oh, I couldn’t believe the Woods/Els/Mickelson capitulation on Sunday. Basically the 3 best golfers of the past decade couldn’t put any pressure on at the back end. I thought for sure Ernie was going to bring it home and make me look like a genius with my pre-tourney prediction. Full credit to McDowell though, he seems like a pretty cool guy.
