Hey everyone. Haven’t posted in a while because I didn’t think I had anything to post about. I took a little time off and only played here and there and was doing a bunch of other things as well. The FTOPS ended and I didn’t play too many events like I talked about before. So I was in a little slump after that and last weekend I had a decent weekend. I won a tournament on Saturday and then got a 4th in another tournament on Sunday. I had some other random cashes and shots in tournaments but
they didn’t go so well.

First place in the cubed turbo. Of course you have to get lucky to get far in this tournament and luck was on my side this day.

This tournament was really frustrating. I was on a huge roller coaster ride with a few tables left until I finally got my stack and kept it. I was a big chip leader going into the final table and really felt in control the whole tournament. I lost a flip 8 handed which knocked me down from 1.6m to 1.2m or so. Then we got down to 4 handed play (which I felt really comfortable to have a chance to take the tournament down) and this hand came up.

PokerStars Game #32253767869: Tournament #188959520, $100+$9 USD Hold’em No Limit – Level XXVII (12500/25000) – 2009/08/30 20:21:23 ET
Table ‘188959520 48′ 9-max Seat #7 is the button
Seat 1: bobboufl11 (536792 in chips)
Seat 7: WestMenlo92 (941259 in chips)
Seat 8: Ice-F1968 (2404598 in chips)
Seat 9: Cre8ive (1175351 in chips)
bobboufl11: posts the ante 2500
WestMenlo92: posts the ante 2500
Ice-F1968: posts the ante 2500
Cre8ive: posts the ante 2500
Ice-F1968: posts small blind 12500
Cre8ive: posts big blind 25000
*** HOLE CARDS ***
Dealt to Cre8ive [Jh Jc]
bobboufl11: folds
WestMenlo92: raises 32880 to 57880
Ice-F1968: raises 2344218 to 2402098 and is all-in
Cre8ive: calls 1147851 and is all-in
WestMenlo92: folds
Uncalled bet (1229247) returned to Ice-F1968
*** FLOP *** [4h Qh Th]
*** TURN *** [4h Qh Th] [Kc]
*** RIVER *** [4h Qh Th Kc] [3s]
*** SHOW DOWN ***
Ice-F1968: shows [Ah As] (a pair of Aces)
Cre8ive: shows [Jh Jc] (a pair of Jacks)
Cre8ive said, “gg”
Ice-F1968 collected 2413582 from pot
*** SUMMARY ***
Total pot 2413582 | Rake 0
Board [4h Qh Th Kc 3s]
Seat 1: bobboufl11 folded before Flop (didn’t bet)
Seat 7: WestMenlo92 (button) folded before Flop
Seat 8: Ice-F1968 (small blind) showed [Ah As] and won (2413582) with a pair of Aces
Seat 9: Cre8ive (big blind) showed [Jh Jc] and lost with a pair of Jacks

This was a very rough hand. The blinds were 12.5k/25k and I had almost 1.2 million. The chip leader had 2.4 million, which was about 100 big blinds. The button made it about 60k, the chip leader moved ALL IN for 2.4 million, and I snap called with JJ in the big blind. I literally thought his range was 22-88 and at BEST AK. The only other information I had on the player was at the final table when he 3bet a UTG raiser 3x the initial raise and the UTG raiser shoved in JJ and the villain called with KK. So in that instance he 3x’d 3bet/called and didn’t just jam in. So when we are 4 handed and he just jams for 100bbs JJ is supposed to be a huge favorite over his range for shoving.

AA isn’t supposed to be in his range. AA is such a monster of a hand, not just No Limit Holdem in general, but especially 4 handed. I say this because other people’s ranges open up considerably in 4 handed play rather than in 9 handed play. So same goes for my situation having JJ. JJ is a monster hand 4 handed play considering the action in front of me too. I really felt in control for the end of this tournament and losing this way really bothered me. It bothered me the most because the villain played his hand in a matter in which he is ONLY getting called by other monster hands, and I happened to wake up with one of those hands I would call him with. To me this is way more unlucky than a KK vs AA situation. For this hand to go down this way: Button raising, small blind chip leader moving in for 100bbs, me having JJ in the big blind (with the information I have on the villain — I knew he was splashing around a lot and pretty loose [he defended an early position raise at the final table with 67o and was playing a bunch of pots out of position] and also the 3x 3bet he did earlier with KK) there is no way I could get away from this hand. It’s really one of the unluckiest spots I’ve been in deep in a poker tournament.

Hopefully that’s not too much ramble and you guys can understand what I’m saying. Just the way the hand played out sucks. As far as ICM is concerned, it’s very close. I talked to some people about the hand, not about the call (because I think it’s an easy call with given information) and ICM factors might play into maybe possibly folding this hand. I didn’t really even consider ICM when I was playing especially when this spot came up. Maybe next time I will take a little time and remember this situation and run some ICM calculations before I make a hasty decision.

I played the first WCOOP 6max tournament and got pretty far. About 8-9 hours in with 200-300 people left I played a hand really bad. I was pretty tired and just made a really bad play vs. a non-thinking player. With that one bad played hand it really ruined my momentum. I had a ton of chips the whole way through the tournament and this killed it all. I was a big stack then went to a short stack, chipped up, and then played another bad pot which knocked me out. That was pretty frustrating as well. The WCOOP has some great structures for their tournaments but I saw that the tournament lasted til 7am. It started at 2:30pm est and finished at 7am. So that is almost 17 hours of poker!!! That is really crazy for someone to sit in front of a computer for 17 hours straight. I think stars should do something about having their structures like this for single day tournaments. 17 hours of online poker has to be equivalent to about 3 days of poker for a live tournament.

I guess I have said enough for this blog. I have a lot more to talk about and will be updating the blog a few times this week. Hopefully can have some WCOOP success to talk about.