Tonight I played in the final of the PokerNetwork League. Nine of us started to play for an Aussie Millions seat. It was a deep stack tournment with 5000 chips to start with and 15 minute blinds. I was pretty confident that if I got got OK cards I would have a chance at winning it.
For the first 3 or 4 levels I didn’t have any cards better then K 10. No pairs, no suited connectors. I struggled along getting caught stealing blinds a few times and got down to around 3000. I got dealt aces and managed to get back up to 5000 with those. Not long after that I got KK and an got a nice flop to get up to 6000.
Another level went by and I hit a set of 6’s which I used to get to 7700. I checked a mildy scary river and won the hand. It was at that point I realised I wasn’t being aggresive enough with made hands. I was playing to scared that I would be sucked out on. I changed my play and the next time I picked up a good hand, that exact thing happened. I hit a set of Q’s and got outdrawn to a flush on the river. I still don’t think looking back I played the hand strong enough.
That put me back down to around 5000 where I stayed until the blinds got up to around 300 – 600. I had been up and down and my blind stealing had been doing very well which had enabled me to survive with no hands after the Q’s. After that the blinds rose and it was very hard to steal as people were raising a lot pre-flop. I got blinded down to aroun 3000. Then I called all in with AK to double up to 6000. From there I worked my way up to 8000 and then I got dealt 2 back aces.
Again someone went all in before me and I called. Suited J10. When I first saw the hand it made me a bit uneasy. Thats the kind of hand i’ve cracked a lot of aces with myself. I would have (obviously) much rathered him have a AK or Jack’s or something. After a really good flop I had almost switched off. Until I saw someone call for a Q in the chat box. Just as I realised he had 4 outs to make a runner runner straight on the river, it hit.
I was crippled and down to about 2000 in chips with blinds at 300-600 with a 50 ante. I pushed a couple of times and got one walk on my big blind. Then I pushed with a J high on my small blind into another short stack hoping for a fold. He called and I only had one live card.
That was the end of me finishing 8th. I was really disappointed because I could have made a good run of it if those aces held up. The Aussie Millions would have been a dream to play in and a good little holiday for me as well. I got $250US for 8th which is going to help buy some robotics stuff that I couldn’t have afforded otherwise.
Oh well. I have been on a good upswing in tournments this year so I supposed I can take pride in that. One of my goals for 2007 is to win a seat in a WPT event(or some other 10K+ tourny) so hopefully I’ll get to do some poker travelling some time in 2007.
December 27, 2006 at 1:33 pm
Was a very sick beat midge, very sick. But you can blame the structure – his JTs push was actually a very good push in his spot.
The flop was K-9-x so he actually had 4 outs with 2 cards after the flop. I was the one calling for the Queen sorry, but I was tilting after pushing into your QQ a few hands before :p
good luck in your future poker exploits
December 27, 2006 at 11:58 pm
GG midge, That was a sick beat but you took it in your stride. pokabandito seems to be a bit of a luckbox at times. I still am sickened by him calling with a TTQ showing in Razz after 5th street, and him calling me down after I bet/raised every street, and he picked up runner, runner to crush me.
December 28, 2006 at 1:45 am
Bad luck mate, was wondering how you went. The good thing is this won’t be a one off for you. You were mostly hard done by, by the sounds of things….mostly.
January 5, 2007 at 5:25 pm
Midge, sorry for the bad beat with the J10s. The blinds were so big that the game was push/fold preflop for the most part. I was sorry to deal you such a bad beat as you seem like such a nice guy, but you took the beat in stride. Hopefully you’ll get that seat into a 10K event soon.
BoB, you can think what you want, but until you play Razz regularly shorthanded you probably won’t understand those plays I made on the FT. I play Razz cash games a lot online, and my “suckout” on you was not as bad as it looked.
I may be a luckbox, but that one hand (once we were 3-handed on the FT and I was a massive chip lead) doesn’t prove it.
January 9, 2007 at 5:38 am
Actually, I had the chip lead Poka, after you donked off to me a few hands before!!!
January 18, 2007 at 11:43 pm
Bummer man, at least you got cash for robots