Event: Sunday $200,000 GTD
Location: Blackbeltpoker.com
Date: 15.05.11
Buy-in: $215
Game: No Limit Hold’em
Players: 944
Final Position: 1st -- $42,000
Hand #1
Blinds: 150/300(30)
Hand: Qd-Qh
Position: UTG+1
Stack: 9,415
As has become almost traditional in any tournament I have a deep run in, my start in the $200,000 GTD was a slow one and I plodded along with my starting stack roughly intact for around two and a half hours.
The first key pot came during level 10, and with my stack now containing just 30 big blinds, it was not a moment too soon. I opened to 600 UTG+1 with Q-Q. Once I reach the middle stages of a tournament, I hardly ever make a standard open for more than the minimum as you are getting such a great price on a steal, and people just don’t adjust well enough to the antes. For what it’s worth, if I am ever going to open bigger it will often be from a position like this as I don’t mind not having to play as many flops out of position. In this case, however, I had been opening for the minimum as standard and didn’t want to give people any reason to find folds against my premium holding. I get my wish, as an incredibly passive player to my immediate left and both blinds come along for the ride.
The flop comes 8-4-3 rainbow and it’s checked to me. I hold the effective stack in the pot with the BB [Big Blind] having approximately an equal stack to my own, the passive player sitting on 28,000 and the SB [Small Blind] on 46,000. I choose to bet exactly half the pot, as it was bloated by the multiway action and I wanted to try ‘price in’ some middle pairs. It also gave the illusion of fold equity to all three villains and I didn’t look too committed.
Mr. Passive folded and the SB shipped it in. The BB folds and I make the easy call. The villain had a fairly loose image and with such a dry board, there was really no reason to believe he’d play a set so aggressively. He flipped over the 8h-9d for top pair and didn’t improve, giving me a healthy double-up.
Hand #2
Blinds: 1,400/2,800(280)
Hand: Ah-Kc
Position: MP2
Stack: 36,088
Fast forward to three hours later and my stack has drifted up to around 50,000 and back down again without contesting a pot containing much over 10 big blinds. I find A-K in middle position and again open for the minimum. With only 13 big blinds, an open-shove here would be the standard move but the dynamic at the table was an aggressive one and I wanted to induce someone to shove behind me. If the table was a bit stronger and full of good, winning regular MTT players, I would be more inclined to try to be balanced in this spot and shove my entire range. Here, however, I decided that there was a good chance I could induce a resteal from someone who hadn’t properly considered the size of my stack.
As a side note, I believe in general that people try to sometimes be too balanced with this kind of stack size. There are times when your hand is so strong it’s just correct to try get all the chips in any way possible, even if that means doing something that might look suspicious.
As it happens, the hand plays itself as someone finds A-Q behind me. I hold up, and increase my stack to around 30 big blinds deep. With this kind of stack size it’s important not to spew a single chip away and I’ll be trying hard not to allow myself to get down to 13bbs again.
Hand #3
Blinds: 2,500/5,000(500)
Hand: Ks-Kc
Position: Hijack
Stack: 191,477
I steal a load of blinds and antes and eliminate a short stack, nines vs. threes, to build a healthy 40 big blind stack going into the 2,500/5,000 level when the following coup occurred. It’s folded to me in the hijack and I make it 10,000 to go with K-K. There is a 20bb stack directly behind me, a big stack on the button, and two shorties in the blinds. I’m obviously hoping for my aggressive image to pay off and for someone to shove over the top of me. Oddly, it’s folded to the BB who just peels from his 12 big blind stack.
Again, this is a spot where against a competent villain alarm bells would be ringing, but as the villain in question had previously given me reason to believe they were less than so, I put him on some kind of middling hand. Broadway combos, medium aces and mid pairs seemed most likely.
The flop came down Ad-Ts-6h and the villain checks to me. This is another spot where I don’t believe it’s so important to be balanced that we turn our hand into a bluff by c-betting. The check behind is likely to induce him to put in more money with weaker hands that might just check-fold the ace-high flop.
I check it back and the turn is the Js and the villain now leads out for 20,250 into the 27,000 pot, leaving himself just 38,000 behind. This was a pretty gross spot. On the one hand, he shouldn’t ever be bluffing here, and he surely can’t fold to a jam. Any ace obviously beats me as does 6-6 (maybe even T-T too if he plays it like that pre flop) and J-T just got there. It’s hard for him to have hands like K-J and K-T which I beat, but not impossible. He might even have just picked up a spade draw and decided to go with it no matter what.
In the end, I decided that I’d checked back the flop to induce action from worse hands and I had a backup gutshot, so I made the call. The river was a 2c. He, of course, puts in the last 38,000 and with so much in there I make the crying call. In hindsight, I should have just folded the turn, but hindsight is a wonderful thing. His A-T made for a flopped top-two and sent me back down to 123,000.
Note to self: play better.
Hands #4 and #5
Blinds: 3,000/6,000(600), Hand: Th-7s, Position: SB, Stack: 97,883
Blinds: 3,500/7,000(700), Hand: Ah-Jh, Position: Hijack, Stack: 207,066
The next two hands are included to give you some history to a pivotal moment in the tournament. The blinds have gone up and I have been forced to fold for a round or two leaving me in the 16 to 17bb range. It’s folded to a loose villain who had been playing 31 percent of hands and shot his stack up from 200,000 to 400,000 over the past 10 hands or so without showdown. My read is that he’s not great and obviously opening a wide range, so when he opens 3x to 18,000 from the cut-off, I take a gamble and go for the resteal, moving in for 98,000. When he made the quick call I thought I’d need to improve; I wasn’t expecting him to flip over the 9-8 of clubs. I guess I should have known that in this spot, ten high was the nuts. To give credit where it’s due, this gentleman had come here to gamble. I held.
A few hands later I was faced with an under-the-gun open from the same villain, holding Ah-Jh in the hijack. As this player had shown a reluctance to fold to three-bets, and as I had several players to act behind me, I opted for the conservative approach and decided to peel a flop in position.
It’s folded round behind me and we get an ever so attractive 4-T-9 all hearts flop. Our crazy villain now does something odd and checks it to me. I decided that I expected him to almost always c-bet when he had something so it seemed shrewd to check in behind and try induce a bluff.
The turn was a slightly annoying 8h. He checked again and now I decided he definitely couldn’t call a bet without a heart so I checked again to give him one last chance to do something silly. The river brought a fifth heart in the shape of a 3 and finally our opponent gets his betting finger out and fires 43,575 into the 58,100 pot.
I made it 119,000 to try and get value from a stubborn middling heart, leaving myself just 67,000 behind. This was an unusual play for me but I thought he might be bad enough to just look at how much more it was to him, rather than the paltry amount I’d left behind. In hindsight, I missed some value as he held Kh-Qx for the second nuts and would have called a jam.
To be continued...
Previous Hand4Hand articles:
European Deepstack Poker Championship 2010 (Gerard Harraghy) – Part One
European Deepstack Poker Championship 2010 (Gerrard Harraghy) – Part Two
UKIPT Coventry 2010 (Simon Mairs) - Part One
UKIPT Coventry 2010 (Simon Mairs) - Part Two
WSOP Main Event Satellite (Adam Noone) - Part One
WSOP Main Event Satellite (Adam Noone) - Part Two
Brighton UKIPT (Jamie Burland)