#2: Two for Two?So on the heels of my win of the HORSE tournament with my old workmates, I headed down to Pendelton ready to make a big score. In the first tournament, a $215 NL Holdem event, I started out making a few stabs at the wrong pots and was down a bit when this hand came up:
Folds to me on the button and I look down a KK and raise to 125 with blinds 25/50. SB folds and the BB reraises to 350. Now I have about 2800 total and debate whether or not to 4-bet. I decide to just call and hope for an all low flop to get the most out of TT-QQ.
Flop: A73 rainbow. He checks and I check behind still decently confident I have the best hand.
Turn: 6. He bets out 400. I flat call, unsure what to do on the river but feeling I can't just fold given the action so far.
River: 7. He fires 700. I should have folded here as his line is too strong for QQ-TT and I don't think he has air here often enough. But, stubborn as I am, I call anyway and he shows AA. So it may look like I saved money not going broke with KK against AA but in reality I should have lost less by folding the river. After that hand I was crippled and eventually busted on some non-memorable hand.
JD, who I had swapped 10% with for all of the tournaments, managed to make it to the top 18 so I got a little rebate.
The next day was the $215 HORSE tournament. I feel like this tournament has the most dead money of all the tournaments at Pendelton (on par with the SHOE tournament which is the same games without Razz). This is because people enter this tournament with little to no understanding of how to play the Stud games. Some of them don't even know the basic rules. As long as you can avoid going on tilt trying to make sure the rules of the game are followed in the first few rounds (even some of the dealers are shaky on how to deal Stud and Razz), you can't help but steadily build a stack with all the dead money. That is exactly what happened for me. After the first round of all the games I had about doubled my stack and some of the inexperienced players were starting to bust.
I also was fortunate enough to be seated directly to the left of the previous tournament's champion. It is a well known fact that the day after winning a tournament it is almost impossible to play well. You are on such a rush from having beaten everyone the previous day. Everything you did worked and if you made a mistake, you got lucky anyway. Now, you start over in a new tournament and you forget how to be patient and end up spewing away chips. Sometimes you're on the rush of your life and do well back to back, but for the most part, you just end up donating. It also helped that this champion was a NL Holdem player trying to play Razz, Stud, and Limit Holdem.
After the first two rounds of games, I was sitting on a somewhat comfortable stack, but the blinds were rising rapidly and one big hand could cripple me. That was when this hand went down on the first hand of the third Holdem round:
Folds to MP who raises, MP2 three-bets. LP thinks for a long time and says "If it was anyone else (other than MP2), I would play this hand, but since it's you, I fold," and folds. I look at KK in the SB and cap it. Folds to MP who thinks for a bit and folds. MP2 calls.
Flop: J52 rainbow. I bet, MP2 raises, I call (planning to check raise the turn). I should probably have just 3-bet here but I wanted to make sure I got my entire stack in as I only had 3 big bets after calling on the flop.
Turn: 4. I check, MP2 bets, I raise, MP2 calls.
River: 9. I bet all in and MP2 calls with what I assume was QQ. I show my KK and win the huge pot! After the hand, MP says that he had 22 for a set of 2s! What's even crazier is that LP says that he folded JJ for a set of Jacks! So if either of them had called preflop I would definitely have busted out.
After that hand I had the biggest stack at the table and was able to wait patiently and pick my spots. I ended up busting out the QQ guy later when he overplayed A7 into my KK on a Q637T board. So I went to the dinner break with a big stack and a lot of momentum.
After the break, I started out rather slow in the Omaha and Stud rounds. We were getting close to the money (they paid 32 spots) so I probably should have been more active but the table really didn't seem to be backing down much. Around the Stud round we made it into the money and I was switched to a new table for the first time of the tournament. It's interesting that I was the only person from the original 8 players of that table still in at that time. I guess it makes sense since they pay about 1 in 10 people. I also realized that it was during this exact Stud round that I had won the work tournament. I joked with JD that I wouldn't know what to do in the upcoming levels with no experience. For the most part, though, I was on cruise control. I would take a few pots here and there to pay for the blinds but I wasn't looking for confrontation.
By the time Holdem came around, we were down to the final 16 players. This was when I made my first big mistake of the tournament:
Folds to me in LP and I raise QJo. Folds to the BB who calls.
Flop: JT9. BB checks, I bet, BB calls.
Turn: 2. BB checks and I check behind (This is a NL play of controlling the pot. I should have bet here and not worried about a check-raise but I decided to check behind and try to induce a bluff).
River: 4. BB bets and I call and BB shows 44 for a rivered set!
I was really upset with letting the BB see the river for free. 95% of the time he won't catch that 4, but I still think that betting the turn is better simply because he can have a lot of hands that will call the turn on a draw. I had enough chips where this hand didn't cripple me, but if I lost another one I would definitely be hurting. A sort while after that hand, the defining hand of the tournament came up for me.
The 44 guy raises in MP. MP2 reraises (he was somewhat short and was probably committed to the hand). Folds to me in the SB and I tell myself I hope I have Aces and look down at ... AA! So I cap it. MP calls and MP2 calls.
Flop: Q94. I bet, MP calls, MP2 raises, I three-bet. MP thinks for a long time. MP2 shows his intentions of capping it and has just a couple chips left on top fo that. MP finally says that he's not getting the right odds and folds. MP2 caps and I call. Turn is a J and I bet and MP2 calls all in with KK. The river is a blank and my hand folds up for a big pot! MP reveals that he had KdTd and woulda made the nut straight on the turn! I was really surprised that he would fold there given that both me and MP2 were almost all in and the pot had grown enormous but I was glad that he did. This was the second time that someone who could well have justified calling had folded in a spot where I would have been knocked out.
The chips from that pot allowed me to cruise to the final table. This was my first final table of a big live (i.e. not online) tournament ever so I was a little nervous. I did manage to pose for this picture:
The final table was a good mix of two "young internet" kids, two 30ish men, one well known pro (Marsha Waggoner), one elderly man, one elderly woman, and me. It took a really long time for anyone to bust. There were a few short stacks but they always seemed to win when they were close to all in. Finally, one of the internet kids busted 8th and the elderly man went out 7th. I busted out Marsha in 6th (with a twinge of sadness as she is really nice and fun to have at the table). The elderly woman went out 5th and the other internet kid finished in 4th and it was down to me and the two 30 somethings!
I started out as the chip leader and was feeling really good about my chances of winning. I made a few mistakes and lost a couple pots and we paused the clock to talk about a deal. We decided to make 3rd and 2nd place pay $9000 and gave the remainder ($9800ish + the cruise) to first. I was the short stack (by a slight bit) and had lost my momentum so was happy to make the deal. This three-handed match was a huge roller coaster. We each held the chip lead and were each almost bust multiple times. Finally, we got down to heads up and I had a pretty severe chip disadvantage. On the first hand of Stud Hi/Lo, I managed to get my meager chip stack all in on 5th street with (2K)5J7 against (23)QJT. On 6th street I hit a pair of 2s and he hit an 8. On 7th, he looked first and turned over a Q for a pair of Queens and I squeezed out a blank and that was it! It was a little disappointing to finish so close to a win, but I was really happy to have made it so far.
So I was 1 spot away from winning two HORSE tournaments in a row but even with a 2nd place in this one, I had started my Pendelton trip off really well.
What was even more amazing is that the next day, JD managed to just about match my accomplishment by getting to the final table of the $215 Limit Holdem tournament! He finished in 4th place.
The rest of the trip was rather mundane as I kept making the dinner break but not cashing in the tournaments and then feeling too tired to play cash games. JD managed to make the final 18 of three more tournaments but couldn't get to the final table. All in all we both made almost exactly the same amount and so roughly broke even on our 10% swaps.
I definitely look forward to the next tournament series in Pendelton in the Spring of '09.
