Shipped the Daily $44 4-Max Event on Poker Stars
Well after my post just two days ago in which I spouted
“Online has been mediocre to say the least over the past few months. I haven't made a final in a while and when you grind MTTs that does hurt.”
I proceeded to take down my first online tournament since the $1.2k I picked up in July for winning the $22 Big Antes.
After I made that post I again had a deep run (that evening) in the $22 Big Antes, however I got caught up in a high variance spot and busted 13th out of 360 for $100. The following day I was two tabling between the $27.50 Big Antes and the $44 4-Max both on Stars. I made deep runs in both however busted the $27.50 in 36th place out of 361 runners for $60, this was a disappointing result as I was maintaining a sub average stack the whole tournament. Whenever I’d build a stack I’d lose a standard race JJ less than A K, A K less than TT and QQ less than A K.
Once I busted I was fully focused on one table, which was the $44 4-Max. These tournaments in particular need to played with extra due care and attention due to the speed and amount of hands played. Your constantly involved in pots, 3-betting, 4-betting and even 5-betting a few times an orbit. So it was fortunate I busted the $27.50 tourney so I could concentrate 100%.
I registered 30mins late for this event which is what I have started to do a lot recently. Stars keep late registration open for an hour for every MTT now and usually 5%-10% of the field busts in quick succession so I like avoiding the meaningless 10/20, 15/30 levels and jumping right in at 25/50 with a 3k starting stack.
I immediately jumped into the top 10% of chips and remaining there until the money, keeping really busy and creating a nice aggressive table image. Once the money bubble burst my stack started to grow significantly, I ran very well for about an hour and found myself with 150k in chips. My aggro table image did help, because I was involved in so many pots that when I did hit I got action. For example I’d raise with K8 and the flop would come down 88T, if it was checked to me I’d put in a strong c-bet and if my opponent had any hand I got paid off with 3 streets of value. The beauty of these shorthanded events is you can find value with 2nd and even 3rd pair as people just don’t believe you and sometimes they’ll eve pay you off with A high.
I took the chip lead into the final table and was involved in a number of interesting hands, some of which I played well and some badly. I don’t have the HH’s to hand some pots which I thought were interesting were the following...
Full House.
4 handed final table, seated to the left of a serial raiser which was perfect as my 3 bets were getting though and I was winning a decent number of pots from the sb and bb when he raised from the button. I’m in the sb with 9T and its folded to him on the button, I’m playing about 170k and hes playing 120k blinds are 1500/3000. He makes it 7500 and I call. Flop 992, I thought about betting and it may have been the better option but I decided to check as I knew he would be betting 100%, he did and I called. Turn was a T giving me a boat and again I knew he’d bet so I check called a 25k bet on the turn. Now I’m sitting there with pretty much the nuts, how do I get his last 60k??? I know the chances are he has nothing, so in order to get that last 60k in the middle I can either put out a tiny river bet and hope he shoves or check and again hope he shoves. I decided that betting was a no go the hand went check call, check call, and a bet was obvious so I checked and hoped he’d shove, unfortunately for me he gave up and checked behind with nothing, not really sure how I could have played that hand differently to get more value, I know he had nothing but he was a serial aggressor so I’m sure I could have gotten his chips in the middle somehow.
A-Rag (this hand was before the one above)
2nd hand was from the same position, I’m in the sb with A2o and the same guy on the button raises (I’m playing about 120k and hes playing about 150k) to 6k (blinds 1/2k). I call and the flop comes A high. I check and he bets out 15k into about 15k I min-raise to 30k as I’m 90% sure I have the best hand, to my surprise he then 3-bets to 65k. Now I start to think, do I want to risk my tournament life with A2 and bust out first in the final table. It’s a fold or allin situation. Based on his aggressive style and the fact I’d been raising and 3-bet him a lot, his play started to look like strange. He may well be doing that with a small pocket pair and figured I’d fold without the Ace. I went with my read and decided to shove my A2 allin leaving him another 50k or so to call, he instantly folded and this play gave me plenty of confidence and added to my super aggressive table image. If only you could show one card on Stars, I would have loved to have just shown a deuce.
I took out the aggressive player in 4th after he shoved his 88 into my 99. I then had about 400k of the 600k in play and just shoved any pair, ace and king to try and accumulate as many chips as possible before heads up as both guys tightened up loads due to the $1k pay jump. Once heads up I had a 5-1 chip lead, picked up AQ, shoved he called with KJ and I held. GG.
Play finished in the early hours and didn’t get to bed until 3.30am, up at 7am for work :D I was getting slightly annoyed that it was getting late at the final table and once I did spew chips on a final table just because I thought “fek it, if I bust I can get some sleep”. But this time I focused and was determined to win even if it meant no sleep before work.
Thanks.
