Back to Back!
I am fresh off back to back wins on the $4/180 person SNG’s on Stars. Yes, I won two in a row! The first one was on Sunday, and the other was last night. They used to only run these tournaments between the hours of midnight and 5pm which pretty much excluded me from playing them during the week. I noticed last night around 9pm that they were running them around the clock (at least on a trial basis). I reluctantly fired one up after The Amazing Race was over (What were you thinking BJ!?!). I say reluctantly because I knew that if I made it deep in the tournament it would be late and if I bubbled out I would be pissed off for staying up so late with nothing to show for it. This one went very much like my win on Sunday. I played very tight in the first few levels, limping into a few pots cheaply trying to hit a big hand. I ended up doubling up a few times before the break, both where I was a dog when the money went in. Not great, but you got to get a little lucky to win, and to be fair, I wasn’t that far behind in the hands.
I managed to avoid most big confrontations stealing where I could and made it into the money. Then with 2 tables left, I hit a huge rush of cards and got some lucky flops and managed to get to the final table as the significant chip leader. I also made a huge bluff that would have crippled me. I don’t usually bluff in these types of tournaments. I do semi-bluff, but not really much of the stone-cold variety. Here is the scene as best as I can remember it:
Guy on my right has a heathy stack, like mine, about 15,000 with blinds of 200/400 ante 25. He has been doing a lot of raising of my blinds and I haven’t really been defending all that much because I am on a huge dry streak of cards. 84o, 92o, this type of thing. He is generally an aggressive player and I feel like if I push back he will respect it. I am dealt 74o in the BB and it is folded around to him in the small blind. He raises 3x BB and I decide that I am going to make a stand on this one. I re-raise to about 2400 and he thinks for a second then calls. Flop comes AAJ with three suits he fires about 1800 into the pot. I know he likely has better cards than me, but I also know that he is the type of player who if he had an A would check it to slowplay it. I raise it up to 4200 or something, leaving me with only about 6000 or so behind so a call by him would be pretty much the end of my chances. He thinks for a few seconds, then mucks. The pot is pushed my way and I think for a second about showing the bluff to tilt him, but decide against it. I didn’t have this type of play in me until recently, and that thought really makes me happy. I am watching players more and really thinking about what every bet and raise means.
Anyways, back to the final table. I used my big stack a little to push the medium sized ones around and stole some blinds. Some of the guys started playing back at me so I backed off a little determined to have a big hand the next time I raised. Got KK on the button soon after on the button. The cutoff limped and I raised, hoping he would think I was just playing the big stack trying to buy it. He called and the flop came 9 high. He checked, I bet and he pushed. I called almost instantly as the raise wasn’t that much more as the guy was a short stack. He flips up K9 and fails to improve.
After that it was pretty much smooth sailing until it got to heads up. I had about a 2-1 chip lead and started chipping away at him. He was a good player and managed to double through me when we both had small aces but he had the bigger kicker. I managed to get the chip lead back and eventually pushed with A4 vs his 22. I get a miracle J on the river to make broadway and take it down.
I looked up at the clock and it was almost 1am. Crap….at least I won!
Weird things that happened in the tournament:
1) I got dealt A8 and flopped a full house and received no action taking a small pot. For the next three hands in a row I was dealt A9o and didn’t play any of them.
2) I won two all-ins holding AQ while the other guy had the Hiltons.
3) I ended up heads-up with another Canadian. He was from Vancouver. Us Canucks play some mean poker.
I managed to avoid most big confrontations stealing where I could and made it into the money. Then with 2 tables left, I hit a huge rush of cards and got some lucky flops and managed to get to the final table as the significant chip leader. I also made a huge bluff that would have crippled me. I don’t usually bluff in these types of tournaments. I do semi-bluff, but not really much of the stone-cold variety. Here is the scene as best as I can remember it:
Guy on my right has a heathy stack, like mine, about 15,000 with blinds of 200/400 ante 25. He has been doing a lot of raising of my blinds and I haven’t really been defending all that much because I am on a huge dry streak of cards. 84o, 92o, this type of thing. He is generally an aggressive player and I feel like if I push back he will respect it. I am dealt 74o in the BB and it is folded around to him in the small blind. He raises 3x BB and I decide that I am going to make a stand on this one. I re-raise to about 2400 and he thinks for a second then calls. Flop comes AAJ with three suits he fires about 1800 into the pot. I know he likely has better cards than me, but I also know that he is the type of player who if he had an A would check it to slowplay it. I raise it up to 4200 or something, leaving me with only about 6000 or so behind so a call by him would be pretty much the end of my chances. He thinks for a few seconds, then mucks. The pot is pushed my way and I think for a second about showing the bluff to tilt him, but decide against it. I didn’t have this type of play in me until recently, and that thought really makes me happy. I am watching players more and really thinking about what every bet and raise means.
Anyways, back to the final table. I used my big stack a little to push the medium sized ones around and stole some blinds. Some of the guys started playing back at me so I backed off a little determined to have a big hand the next time I raised. Got KK on the button soon after on the button. The cutoff limped and I raised, hoping he would think I was just playing the big stack trying to buy it. He called and the flop came 9 high. He checked, I bet and he pushed. I called almost instantly as the raise wasn’t that much more as the guy was a short stack. He flips up K9 and fails to improve.
After that it was pretty much smooth sailing until it got to heads up. I had about a 2-1 chip lead and started chipping away at him. He was a good player and managed to double through me when we both had small aces but he had the bigger kicker. I managed to get the chip lead back and eventually pushed with A4 vs his 22. I get a miracle J on the river to make broadway and take it down.
I looked up at the clock and it was almost 1am. Crap….at least I won!
Weird things that happened in the tournament:
1) I got dealt A8 and flopped a full house and received no action taking a small pot. For the next three hands in a row I was dealt A9o and didn’t play any of them.
2) I won two all-ins holding AQ while the other guy had the Hiltons.
3) I ended up heads-up with another Canadian. He was from Vancouver. Us Canucks play some mean poker.
posted by Leafs31 at 9:52 AM
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