 Council Bluffs 02/2010 (WSOP Circuit) |
| Day 2 (Hold'Em, HORSE) |
| Last Updated: 2010-02-24 09:49:05 |
| Rich and I both bought into the noon Hold'em tournament and had some time to kill so back to the craps table. Another profitable session, was down 300 or so at one point but someone got on a really big roll and both Rich and I ended up ahead (him more than me).
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| Unfortunately we both ended up at the same table to start off, and things didn't go well for me at all. Early on I got slick and raised out, a limper called the raise and we saw the flop. Great flop for me, K-9-rag. Limper checked, I bet 3/4 of the pot, limper called. Turn is a J. Limper quickly leads into me, I call. River is a blank, limper makes a huge bet and I have to give up the hand thinking he caught either two pair or a set.
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| Later we would learn this guy was a bluffer so who knows if I made a good laydown or a bad one, but at that point in the tournament I had to give it up.
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| Unfortunately it was mostly downhill from there. Rich wasn't playing many hands, but also wasn't winning any pots. I don't recall ever seeing his cards, I don't remember him getting to a showdown. By the time our table broke up we were both down to about 4000 chips from a starting stack of 6000. Oh and 423 people signed up and top prize was a hair under $37,000.
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| But I wouldn't even get close to money. First hand at my new table I get 99 and call a raise. Flop 3 overs including an ace and I have to give it up - they showed their A-7. I did manage to buy a pot here and there, but again just like the night before every time I would win a pot, the next hand I played I'd lose some chips. After a long card-dead stretch I finally get aces but only got 800-900 for them. Eventually I get an Ad-Jd and raise out to 800, another player min-re-raises to 1600. I'm already going to be under 10X BB if I fold so I don't want to get away. I decide to try a stop-and-go - call the raise and then shove any flop hoping that the other person misses or that something on the board scares him. Or who knows, if I hit the flop I could be golden.
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| Flop comes 7-8-10 rainbow, so I have a gutshot and two overs. Hopefully he has something like A-K or A-Q and I can make him give it up. But no, he has pocket 10s and insta-calls. The 9 doesn't come and I'm out.
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| Oh well. On to HORSE.
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| Rich was still in, he ended up lasting too long to play in HORSE but not long enough to get a whiff of money. He did end up playing in the 7:00 tournament but didn't fair much better.
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| Did have enough time to eat and have my only bad session of craps, poor me ended up down about $35.
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| Barely made it to the table for my first hand because I downloaded the Yahoo IM app for my iTouch. Was too busy chatting with Joann on my new toy to notice the time, thankfully she was paying more attention to the clock than I was.
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| The first interesting quirk about this tournament was that they randomly selected the starting game so we started with Razz instead of Hold'Em. And most people can't deal with Razz so I thought that was good news. Not so much. Got a great starting hand on the 3rd or 4th hand, and got a great card on 4th street. But my next three cards were pair, paint, pair. Then was second best both ways in stud 8/b, got rivered on a 5 outer in Hold'Em and had a nut low counterfieted in Omaha 8/b on the river. At the first break I was down 2/3 of my stack.
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| As you can imagine, I'm in a bit of a foul mood at this point. I've already spent two entire tournaments grinding out a short stack. I've really not had chips at all for two days and here I am in tournament number three as low in chips as I've been in any of them. And an hour and a half into this one I've got 2000 lousy chips left.
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| But there's one thing I've learned in this game of HORSE. As long as you have chips, things can turn around. And they did.
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| I survived in the 1500-2500 range for quite a while. I was playing super tight and only playing big hands, so I'd chip down a little in blinds, antes and bring-ins, but when I did get my chips in my hands held up. And, then, FINALLY, the run I had been waiting for.
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| And yeah, after all that grinding, you'd think I would have been euphoric but I managed to find reasons to whine about it.
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| First I get an J-5-K-8 in the big blind playing Omaha 8/b. A hand I normally would never play in this game. Flop 2-K-K. I bet, one caller. Turn is an ace, I bet, he calls. River is a 3, I bet again, he calls again and says "I guess you have a K". He turns over A-2-3-X. Not only do my 3 Ks hold up, shocking enough, he was calling on a low draw and got counterfieted and was hoping his lousy 2 pr was good so my "can't get much worse" low of 8-5 was ALSO good!
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| Then I get moved and they also happen to be starting a round of 8/b. I get A-K-2-J and raise out, one caller. I get a K-J-rag flop, I bet, call. He ends up catching runner-runner low and we split. Very next hand I'm sitting on A-3-K-8 and we get some limpers. Flop K-5-4, someone bets and we're down to 3 players, turn is an 8 so I have two pair and 2nd nut low. Two of us are all in and we see the cards. Can't remember the hands but my two-pair and my low are both good only I'm splitting the low because the guy I split the previous hand with has A-3 also - river a deuce. DAMMIT! We both have the A-5 straight for nut low and split the other guys chips.
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| "I'm going to split every pot with this guy" I say. There it was, I was winning chips and whining about it.
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| VERY NEXT HAND I get A-A-2-X and raise out, one caller. Flop was K-low-low, I bet, they folded and I showed my aces. I pick up one more good size pot in 8/b and all of a sudden I'm in good shape.
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| On to Razz, and quickly the hand that put me over the top. I have A-3-4 with the A-3 underneath and I raise out, I get reraised by a 6, I pop it again and he just calls. 5 on the turn, he catches a 4 I think. Bet, call. I make a 7-low on 5th street, bet, he calls. 6th street gives him four cards 6 and lower showing, I catch a 5. More into the pot. The last card comes, I take a quick look and see a 3 so I've got a 7-low, he bets, I call and turn up my 7 low. He shows his 6 low. I'm very bummed, I finally got chips and I'm losing this big pot. But I accidentally only turned over just my A-3 and the dealer asks me to turn over my last card which I know is a 3...and it's a deuce! Holy crap I misread my hand! I had a wheel!
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| Well he's pissed off at me for what he thought was a slow-roll. But eventually he realizes that if I have a made wheel and I know it, I'm not just calling the river. So I win a huge pot but I cost myself at least 2000 chips by not raising the river because he can't fold a 6-low.
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| Now I start counting down. We're 6 from the money. Every few minutes someone busts out. I'm texting Joann with every bustout keeping her up to date at home. 5...4...3...then my table stops. And the other table stops. I make a quick count, 6 at my table, 5 at the other, tables are balanced, what's up? THERE'S ANOTHER TABLE! Dammit! We're actually 18 handed, we stopped because there are two all-ins at one table and might be going down to two.
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| So my countdown starts over at 10. Just as we're finishing up Razz they get the second bustout and we're really down to two tables. And the table I get moved to is only just starting Razz so 8 more hands.
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| Unfortunately I go a little card dead. I'm only losing antes, I was a little lucky with the bring-ins, but it all takes it's toll eventually. When we're down to 10-handed I'm 8th in chips and quite a bit behind 7th in chips. But there are two really, really short stacks and I'm now playing just to outlast. Someone at the other table busts out and we're 9 handed. Then quirk number two - they move us to one table 9-handed.
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| Do the math. HORSE involves three 7-card stud games. There are only 52 cards in a deck. You burn 4. There aren't enough cards...but that's what they did. And again random selection for the game, we start out with stud 8/b. So here's the setup. I've got 7700 chips. Ante is 700, bring-in is 1000, limits are 3000-6000. The short stack has 3500. Even if he doesn't bring in once he's all in within 5 hands. He didn't wait. First hand he was three to a low and shoved, got one caller with a high hand. He got nothing, the caller caught a full house and I was in the money!!!
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| I didn't last much longer, exact same situation. One or two hands later I got all the chips in with A-4-6, got a caller with 10-10-3. I got a 4, then a 6 while he caught a 3 so even my two pair wasn't good. He got a 10 on 6th street and I was drawing dead on both ends when I got paint on 6th street and that was it. I was out in 8th place.
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| Paid a little less than double my buyin. But really, I was very happy. Of course I would have enjoyed a final table in the more lucrative Hold'Em tournament earlier in the day but I really enjoy HORSE and this is my first cash in a big HORSE tournament.
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| So that's it, the plan is to drive home Sunday since neither of us made a "day two".
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| I did win a few more bucks at craps, so between craps and the one cash it was a profitable trip.
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| And one last story. You probably all know I was in a car accident the previous Sunday driving on snow. Well here I was again driving in snow to get home from this trip when someone in the right lane (we were in the left) spun out in front of us, slid across our lane and into the median I'd say about 20 feet in front of us at speeds in the 50's. You can imagine the thoughts running through my head at that moment...but thankfully no collision this time and everyone was OK. |
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