 Vegas October 2013 |
| Day 6 - Close again, time to go home |
| Last Updated: 2013-10-05 12:55:50 |
| Oh so close again...
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| Lunch at Aria buffet again. This is one of my favorite buffets now because they quite often have a very good Manhattan clam chowder. It's so rare that anyone serves that soup, much less a good version of it, that its always a treat for me. Then down the escalator to the poker room...
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| Somehow I managed to play about 6 hours of poker on Friday and have very little to talk about. It was a grind to say the least. In the first four rounds the only pot of any size I won was when I turned top pair, top kicker into a bluff and got away with it.
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| Blinds were probably 100/200, a fairly tight player raised out to 500-600 and I called with A-Jo. Flop came J-rag-rag but two spades. He bet, I called with top pair. I thought about going over the top but really there's no reason. I don't want him to get away from a pair under Jacks, if he has A-K or A-Q I want him to catch an ace, and if he has a bigger pair then I'm in trouble anyway.
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| Turn is a blank, he bets again, I call again. Now I'm concerned about the overpair. Basically with his preflop raising range he can only have the same hand, a pair higher than Jacks (not good for me) and maybe 9s or 10s. Maybe but unlikely a worse Jack - say KJ or QJ, but I don't know if they're even in his range to raise preflop, he would almost certainly have limped with those. I don't see this guy continuing past a flop bet with air.
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| River is a 3rd spade. He checks, I look at the pot...there's about 6000 in the pot, I have about 6000 left. I decide that there's little chance at this point of him calling much with a worse hand. And it occurs to me that I played this exactly like someone on a flush draw, so if I don't have the best hand I can represent the flush.
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| I go all in. He tanks for quite a while and folds.
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| About half an hour later he was in a pot with someone else, they shoved on him, he said "this is the second time I'm folding an overpair", looked at me and told me I bet too much earlier or maybe I would have gotten more out of him...hehe...
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| After that, tho, it was a whole lot of nothing. Eventually I got to the point where I had to start pushing every chance I got. Got away with a few, tried a no-look small blind push trying to steal after it folded to me, got called, turned over 5-7o, he had A-Qo, flop came A-9-8...6 on the turn. Oooops!
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| An orbit later I was still just above 10BB, I pushed with A-9o, ran into KK...ace on the turn! Oooops again.
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| That actually put me into a decent position. I was an average stack with a little over 20BB!
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| At that point we were a little over 20 paying 15. By the time we broke down to two tables we were up a level, I had gone an orbit without playing a hand and here I was down to only 15 BB. Looking around the new table I was one of the three short stacks. First hand out of the gate I pick up A-Q. I raise out, someone goes over the top of me to put me all in, I call.
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| Ran into Kings again, and no miracle for me this time, I bust out 5 from the money.
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| All in all, this was a great trip. A first place out of I think 120-something players, the equivalent of 5th-6th place money out of 158 players, 6 from the money in a 120-ish person tournament and 5 off the money out of 150. That's a good week of tournament poker!
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| And of course, the only decision I made all week that I question is the last one I made. I could have gotten away from it, but OTOH had I gotten away I was back to all-in mode and I would have had to push with worse hands than that. But...then again...it's one thing to push with some fold equity, it's another to call when you're probably behind.
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| Oh well.
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| Drove home after the tournament, got home around 1am and we got to sleep in our own bed!
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| As always, thanks everyone for reading. |
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