Trip Recap Part Two

Trip Recap Part Two

I wasn't quite sure what I wanted to do when I awoke on Thursday. Although the plan going into the week had been to play Thursday's Deep Stack, after four days of break-even cash games and disastrous tourneys, I didn't know if the plan still made sense. (I had even texted Dawn Summers Wednesday afternoon lamenting my failure to learn my lesson regarding not playing tournament poker.)

After an hour or so at the Venetian cash tables, I decided to go with the plan and registered for the $560 deep stack event. Starting stacks were 15k, and levels lasted 40 minutes. Thursday's field was significantly smaller than Tuesday's 900+, but the prize pool was the same with 553 buy-ins.

My starting table was pretty good. We were all pretty much of the solid amateur variety, with the exception of one aggro kid and another guy in his mid-to-late 20's who tried to impress the table with tales of his prior tournament scores (let's call him Tournament Champion ("TC")). I had decent cards in the early stages (was paid off twice when I re-raised with kings out of the small blind), and I built my stack up to around 42k from the 15k starting stack.

First hand of note came before the dinner break against TC. I had AT in the big blind. TC raised to 3 big blinds from UTG+1. He gets 2 callers from LP, and I also just call. Flop comes AsTx7s. I check planning to raise TC, TC bets pot, the LP callers fold, and I raise big. TC just calls. Turn is a non-spade 8, and I bet out 3/4 pot. Again, TC just calls. River is a non-spade 9. I check, and TC moves all-in for 7k (into what is now about a 35k pot after his bet). I probably should be able to fold here, but I ultimately call thinking that the 9 would be an odd card to fill any draws that would have called on the flop and turn. TC quickly turns over JsTs for the rivered straight (after flopping a pair and a flush draw and turning the straight draw). I am down to 20k and have to start building my stack again.

Fortunately, the table had tightened up, and I was able to steal quite a few pots with standard raises. I also got quite a few chips busting one of the short stacks all-in preflop with a higher pair. As we approached the dinner break, I was up to about 30k before getting involved with aggro kid. I'm dealt 88 in the small blind. Aggro kid makes a 3xBB raise from the button, and I call. Flop is Kx8cQc. I check, aggro kid bets pot, and I call. Turn is a blank, and it's another check-bet-call. River is the Kc, which completes any flush draws. I check again, aggro kid bets, and I raise to 10k (thinking I am putting him all-in). Aggro kid snap calls but then proceeds to insta-muck when I show my eights. Unfortunately, I had managed to pull off a jackass move and left him with about 300 chips. (He wasn't able to survive for much longer though, so no chip and a chair stories for him.)

Our table broke during the stub level before dinner (TC was the last to bust), and I ended up at a table with a lot of average stacks (I am slightly above average with 70k chips) and one big stack. It’s at this point that I delivered my one truly bad beat of the tourney. I raise with AQ under the gun (the first hand I have played at the table). A gentleman in MP (who has played a fair number of hands in the orbit and a half I had been at the table) calls the raise, and the rest of the table folds. Flop is KTx. I continuation bet, and MP flat calls. Turn is a Q. I fire out a pot size bet, which puts MP all-in. He calls pretty quickly and turns over KK. I have been reeled in like the over-aggressive donkey that I am. Fortunately (for me at least), I have outs, and the jack on the river gives me the nuts and eliminates MP. My ears turned red after this one. I still would have had an average stack had I lost that pot, but as a result of the beat, I have 90k at the dinner break (avg – 58k) with 148 players remaining.

Coming back from dinner, I knew that the hardest part of the tourney was about to begin. As F-Train and I had discussed the previous day, it’s really the ability to excel at the middle stages of MTT’s that separates most of us from the more successful of the poker bloggers. Without being able to sustain smart aggression and a good sense of timing, one ultimately becomes too dependent on cards and is going to end up getting short barring an incredible run of starting hands. Not going to let that happen, I went in to the second half of the day ready to accumulate chips by playing as aggressively as I could (actually thinking at one point, “What would LJ do?” Thanks LJ!).

As lucky as the AQ hand was, I got my best luck of the night when my pre-dinner table broke. Over the next seven hours of play (both before and after the bubble), I sat at some of the most passive tables on which I have ever played. With the exception of one hand where I was in the small blind and the big blind and I checked a hand down to the river, I did not show down a single hand over 7 hours. I slowed down a little bit when the other side of the table started to grumble, but even then, I continued to raise and re-raise (“steal and re-steal” as Hoy would say) and slowly built up my stack.

When the bubble finally broke at 1 am, I had managed to keep up with an average stack despite having been mostly card dead since dinner. At that point, we re-drew for six tables of nine-handed poker. To my surprise, the new table continued to play just as passively, as the players now appeared to be playing against a final table bubble of sorts. Given the top-heavy payout structure of the Venetian tournaments, each additional place in standings adds only incremental value to the prize until one reaches the final table. Afraid to bust early and take home a small profit, players continued to fold away their chips and ended up too short to make effective plays. (Note to Dawn Summers: I am pretty sure this is what the “Fold to the Money” strategy gets you.)

I continued to stay right at average until one of the last hands of the night, when I had JTs in the big blind and called a 3x raise from EP. I missed the flop completely and then folded to the raiser’s continuation bet. The hand left me with 202k chips (average 218k) and put me in 17th of the 38 players remaining going in to Day 2 on Friday. At the end of the night, I felt pretty good. I had yet to be all-in, I felt like I had been in control of several of my tables, and I thought that I had been playing fairly well (and got a little bit of luck on the occasion when I needed it). I’ll leave Day 2 for the next part of the recap, as I am still trying to figure out how I managed to take what was never more than an average stack and end up in third place.