charity tournament

I recently got invited to play in a tournament through a friend of a friend. He's well connected in my area with other poker circles. Anyway, the tournament was yesterday at 5PM. Here was the structure:

Rebuy tournament; $30 buy-in, unlimited re-buys during the first three rounds. After the third round, re-buy and add-on optional for $30 each. There were 36 players on 4 tables.

My strategy was to play loose and crazy the first three rounds and either build a huge chip stack by then or go broke and re-buy possibly 5-6 times. So I brought $250 in cash just in case.

So, the tournament is about to get underway and I'm seated in the ninth spot. I'm striking up some conversation with some players and getting a feel for how they play. Hard to do from just a conversation so I reserve some judgements until I see how they play.

So the tournament starts, the blinds are $25/$50 and my very first hand is KdJd. Everyone folds to me and I raise my standard 3X the BB. Everyone folds and the BB calls. Flop comes, A39. The BB checks and I bet $150, about half the pot and he calls. The turn comes - rag. He checks, I slow down and check. The river puts a 2 on the board. He comes out firing $400. I call and he shows me two pair 3s over 2s. I muck my cards. I'm officially on tilt. I didn't like him calling my raise with 32o. So now I'm gunning for this guy which isn't normally good. But it's a re-buy tournament, I can afford to go on tilt a little.

A couple of hands later, same guy raises to $200. I look down at my hole cards and see J8o. I decided one bad call deserves another. Another caller and we have a $600 pot. Flop comes J93. Initial raiser bets $500. I immediately go all-in with another $1000 and change. He was very surprised. But not as surprised as me when I heard the next guy go all in. So my nemesis folds and me and the other guy show down. He shows JT and I show J8. The turn reveals a 9 and the river - Ac. Split pot. My nemesis, having folded QQ, realized his error for not calling knowing he could have re-bought had I actually made a strong hand. After seeing I would go over the top with J with a poor kicker, put HIM on tilt. That hand put me back off-tilt and I started playing some sane poker again.

A couple hands later, I picked up A8. My nemesis again raised and he got 4 callers this time - me included. The flop came out, KTJ - rainbow flop. He goes all in. Someone called him and I sat there thinking, "Should I push it and try to catch a Q?" I felt hitting a Q would be too difficult. So after deliberating for about 30 seconds, I folded. Everyone else folded and he showed the nuts AQ making "Broadway" while the caller had AK. The river showed a Q and it was a chopped pot. I would have split it with them had I called. After the hand was over, he said he wanted me to call because he wanted my money. At that point, I knew he was still on tilt.

Round three: I pick up A8 and limp in with that. My nemesis also limped in. There were about 5 people in the hand. There was about $800 in the pot before anyone saw the flop. The flop came: A9A. My nemesis, first to act, goes all in with $2000. Folded around to me and I called with my trip Aces. I show him my ace and he's felted. He rebuys back in and I almost double up.

My nemesis eventually gets eliminates within the rebuy period and doesn't rebuy. He raised with AQ and someone with AK called. They both spike the A on the flop and he goes all in and gets called with a better kicker. No Q came to bail my friend out. He leaves in a huff of frustration. Bye Bye.

I think people tend to overplay one pair. That was the theme I noticed that night. One pair, especially top pair is nice with an A kicker. However, it turns out that the average strength for a winning hand in hold 'em is two pair. So one pair is technically below average. To go all in with one pair, even top pair is somewhat foolish, especially if you don't know your opponents very well.

Anyway, once I established a good chip stack, I realized I was in that grey area between, "Should I still play reckless and plan to re-buy?" or "Should I build on the stack that I have?" I decided to play the stack that I have. After all, it's worth about $60 (rebuy and the add-on - however, I added-on anyway).

With the stack I had, I started playing "small ball" poker - which is a lot of jabbing and out-maneuvering your opponents in small pots, rather than going for the knock out with huge all-in plays. It was the first time I actually employed this strategy. And it was working! I'd call a modest raise with some rags but decided to make a play later in the pot. Like once, I had 85o. The flop came out 83A. I had middle pair and wasn't sure how good they were. The pot was 3 handed and I was first to act. I checked, second guy checked and the late position person bet out about 2/3 the size of the pot. I called and the middle guy also called. Turn: 3. I checked, the second guy checked and the third guy also checked. Up until this point, my analysis lead me to believe that late position guy didn't have an Ace and was playing his position but was now scared that somone, like me, was slow playing either an A or a 3. Now the river came: Ace. Now I come out firing. I bet 3/4 the size of the pot. I knew that nobody had the ace and all the other check-callings in the earlier rounds that I have done now painted a very logical picture that I'm setting up a trap. Both players folded and I take down the pot. Maybe my eights would have held up. Who knows. But I think I played that well out of position.

What was slowly happening to me at the table I started out at was the small ball game was working. I was slowly taking control of the table. I make a small pot here and there. They're giving up the pots to me. I was loving it. One hand I had an open ended straight draw on the flop with two spades showing though. I had 8 outs but only 6 of them were clean. I needed a T or a 5 to make a straight. There was about 8K in the pot at the time. The Ts showed up on the turn and I made my straight. I didn't know where I stood with my straight. I led out the betting in early position with 5K and my two opponents folded.

However, my table image was about to change as my seating assignment got changed to a new table. I had to re-establish my table image all over again. That didn't last long though. I played about 8 hands and got moved again back to my original table.

Back in the same table, I took down a few more pots. I limped in with AJ as under the gun. The host was playing at my table and raised it up. Everyone folded and I called. I checked in the dark to get some position on him. I scored a J on the flop and made top pair. Now I've played a few pots with him and he has this tendency to bet strong on the flop when he has missed. So I was expecting a bet from him....which he did: 4K to go. I raised him all-in because 8K would have been about 2/3 my stack and there's no point in saving the last 1/3. He folded and my stack continues to grow.

Finally, we collapse to the final table. I was able to take down enough pots to stay alive until this point. However, I'm one of the short stacks. There was this huge chip stack, Julio, who seemed eager to play anyone close to elimination. I had to be careful. I carefully guage out who I can steal blinds from and who I can't. My chip stack was about $20000 in chips and the blinds were $1K/$2k with $50 antes. My can't afford to raise to $6k, get re-raised and then fold. My options at this point were all-in or fold. I pick up AJo and went all in on two blinds I were confident would fold if they had average valued blind hands. They fold and pick up the antes and blinds. I survive a few rounds. Next hand, 99. All-in again. No callers and another pot. One big pot was I was in the BB with 57o. The chip leader limps in with 4K (blinds were 2K/4K with $100 antes). Everyone folds and it's me vs Julio.

Flop comes: 246 - rainbow flop. I'm in a pickle here. I'm open ended here and I have no idea what hand Julio could have. If I bet, he will undoubtably raise and put pressure on me. I could check-raise him but then he's priced in and would call. I felt the best thing to do is to go all in. I figured I'm surely behind whatever he has right now but even if he made trip 6s, I can make a straight with 8 outs with two cards to come. If he has nothing, going all in might get him to fold and even if he calls, I can still draw to the nuts. So I go all in. He almost insta-called. He slow played AcQc. He was trying to trap me. But going all in, I was actually in pretty good shape. I was behind like my instincts told me but with 8 outs to the straight and 6 more by hitting any 5 or a 7. 14 outs with 2 more cards to come makes it about even money.

Turn: 6
River: 5.

I make two pair and double up to $45K. Now I'm in really good shape. I was the first one to double up through Julio. A couple players get knocked out and there's 6 of us...now in the money. So now I'm waiting for a few rounds and get knocked down to about $33K and now the blinds are at $4k/$8K. Now it's an all-in fest and everyone is short-stacked. Now with only 5 of us, I pick up AQo. The under-the-guy (UTG) seat goes all in. He's slightly less stacked as I am and I thought he was a pretty solid player and he could have gone all in with a variety of hands. I put him on a weaker Ace. So I called his all in. I had about 5K left and would have gone all in had I known but since I called, Julio decided to also go all-in to knock me out. I called and he showed AT. However, the UTG had pocket Aces. Wow. I hit a Q on the flop but couldn't wiggle out another one though. I was crippled. My remaining 5K doubled through Julio but $10K is absolutely nothing with the blinds at where they were.

Next hand, I'm all-in blind. Everyone folds except for the newly tripled up chip leader. It cost him another 2K to knock me out. He shows pocket aces AGAIN! Ugh. I haven't looked at my cards yet but flipping them up, I actually liked them very much. 6d8d. Suited connectors. About 30% of beating aces. The best chance any two cards can have against aces.

I flop a gut-shot straight. But no such luck in filling it. I'm out in 5th place. $270. Not bad.