Vegas June 2015 (WSOP)

Day 8 - WSOP Monster Stack

Last Updated: 2015-06-14 13:15:38

One coin flip short of making it to Day 2.

You would think that 10.5 hours of poker would give me a lot to talk about, but there actually isn't that much on the poker side of things.

First let me start with a little strategy talk. In most casino tournaments and in most home games I often hear folks talk about a "below 10-big blind" standard for being in the danger zone. In those tournaments, that's often OK. Usually those tournaments quickly get to a point where even the biggest stack, but certainly the "average" stack, is only in the 10-20 big blind range. I've even heard friends talk about being comfortable down to 5 bigs. The thinking is that anything in that 5-10BB range is enough "fold equity". And for those tournaments I suppose that can be reasonable, but even then I'm not sure.

If you have that mindset, however, I would encourage you to read Jonathan Little's "Secrets of Professional Tournament Poker" series. Well, if you want to be a better poker player I'd encourage you to read it whether you think that way or not :-).

With the format of the WSOP, and really a lot of tournaments in Vegas, the 10-big standard is too low. It's not enough to have fold equity against blinds, you need to have fold equity against a raise. If you're under 10 BBs and someone raises out you do not have enough chips to make that person fold unless they have absolutely nothing. There are still a lot of bad poker players out there, but even the bad ones usually understand nowadays that if they're getting 2-1 odds or better and they had a decent enough hand for a raise they pretty much have to call you when you go over the top. And if you're under 10BB and they raise out, that's about what they're getting.

If you're getting short, it's not enough to collect just blinds. If you steal one set of blinds per orbit all you're doing is maintaining your stack. But blinds keep going up, so just maintaining isn't enough. The formats in most good Vegas tournaments and especially in the hour-long rounds of the WSOP are just too long and the money is just too far away to try and just endlessly grind out a short stack.

So the point of all this is that it's not enough to have fold equity against the blinds. With the loose play of today's tournament game, you want to be able to attack the raises of guys opening 50-70% of hands. You need to have what Mr Little often refers to as a "re-shove stack". One big enough to go over the top of a raise and make them fold.

Well...except when you don't have much choice but to grind it out... :-)

The first level went pretty well. I was getting some decent starting hands, some hands worked out and some didn't. I made a few chips here and there. But after that, it was a rough grind.

For 6 levels I caught exactly one flop. Every pot I won except for the one flop I hit was a stone bluff (well, OK one time I was open ended on the turn so a semi-bluff). Every pocket pair I got was a middle pair of 5s through 9s and I believe all but once I flopped two overs (the one time I flopped only one over I had 8s, lead out into me from a loose player, I called, Q on turn, gave up). I never hit a set, only once flopped better than middle pair on my non-pocket pair hands and even middle pair was rare.

On top of that, I had an extremely loose player betting into me which meant that very rarely did action get to me without a raise. To my right were not just one but two players who between them called 97% of my preflop raises with position on me. I was in about the worst seat position I could possibly be in.

But I did what I had to do in that position. I tightened up and played extremely patient poker.

For the first two levels I hovered between 13-15K chips (15K to start).

Second two levels hovered between 11-13K.

Third pair of levels I was generally in the 9-11K range.

Obviously this isn't going the way I was hoping...

We are well into the 7th level and I fall down to just over 7000 chips. Blinds are about to go to 200/400 which means I'm below the 20 big-blind range. Time to fix that while I still have decent fold equity.

A-5, all in. No callers.

A few hands later A-5 again, all in again. No callers.

A few more hands later 5-5, all in. No callers.

On the button, weak-tight player who almost always folds to reraises opens for 1600. I look down at K-10 off. All in. She thinks a while and folds. 10 big blinds or less, she's almost certainly calling...

Next hand A-J suited. I shrug and say "one more time", push all my chips out, no callers.

I lost some in blinds along the way but just like that I was back up around 10,000 in chips. I would not have gotten away with all of that with fewer chips.

Then came the hand that pretty much played itself that finally got me going well into level 8. Weak-tight woman opens again for 1600 and I look down at pocket Jacks. I'm thinking that this is perfect. I already went over the top of her once, I've been going all in a lot and I can't possibly have a hand every time...right?

Well she had A-K, so she was calling anyway.

Board runs out all rags, I double up to 20K. My biggest stack of the day to that point, blinds up to 250/500 so I'm at 40 bigs! Deep breath...

We head out to In-And-Out Burger for the dinner break. An hour and a half is a long time.

After that I caught some more cards. Picked up a good sized pot preflop with Jacks, extracted some more chips from my loose buddy on my left when I hit my second flop of the day with A-K (seriously folks, this is not an exaggeration, I wasn't hitting ANYTHING to this point).

My stack goes up to 29k, almost double starting stack.

That, unfortunately, was my high point.

I lose some chips, have no cards for a couple of orbits and I'm down to 23K when our table breaks up late in level 10 of 11 to be played.

My new table has a fairly aggressive group in the 1-5 seats and fairly tight players in the 6-10 seats where I am. After rare folds on the loose end one of the tighter guys raises out to 1800 with blinds at 400/800. I make the call with A-Q off, but then the guy to act after me goes over the top and I have to give it up.

On to level 11 and I'm down to 17K chips between that hand and the blinds, which are now 500/1000. As you know now, I'm already not happy under 20BB and I certainly don't want to go into day 2 in all-in or fold mode the moment I sit down. I get away with one all in with A-J, still under 20K tho. Another rare fold around to one of the tighter players who has about 1000 more than me and he goes all in. I look down at pocket Jacks, I'm never folding them in that spot, I call.

He has A-K, flops a K and I'm done 30 minutes away from bagging up my chips.

Like I said at the beginning, one coin flip away. In 10.5 hrs I had two flips JJ vs AK. I win one and lose one, win them both and I'm very comfortable starting day 2. Oh well...

We'll be back at the Rio on Sunday for the daily deep stack. Aria is running a big buyin 2-7 triple draw tournament which I would seriously consider for a lower buyin, I've come to enjoy playing that game. But instead I'm going to try and work my way through a 1200-ish field in the Pavilion room.