Bill Chen
July, 2008 (2)
June, 2008 (16)
May, 2008 (1)
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7/6/2008 3:47:06 PM EST
My Mood: annoyed |
| Main Event Continued... |
For the Main Event, Jerrod and the other housemates were of the opinion that we should play lots of pots postflop. This isn't far from how I normally play anyway, I raise with a wide range of hands, and I am probably the most liberal in defending the blinds. Also I prefer smallish raises becaus that also encourages postflop play (yeah you'd rather take down the blinds most of the time, but there is a tradeoff if you raise larger you can't raise as frequently). Yes, a lot of postflop situations are difficult, but the field is generally the weakest in tournament poker. You may make mistakes postflop and you may play in an exploitable manner, but you will also play better than your opponents in general and be able to exploit them. That's the theory anyway.
I think I ended up playing about 25%-30% of my hands, which is a lot of hands over the five two-hour levels of play. The hands I am posting about are the hands I had the most difficulty with, so most of these hands I lost money on etc. Given the number of hands I played though I am reasonably happy with my play, even though it may not seem like it from the following hands. I did finish the day with 48,750 which is an above average stack. I really liked the structure this year much better than last year.
So in the first couple of orbits I pick up 65s 6 off the button, blinds 50-100, I have my 20K starting stack. I make it 200--we decided this was a little better than limping bcause it puts a little pressure on the blinds, I'm still deep stacked after the raise. So a player calls on the button, the BB defends. flop is Q53, I bet 400 the button calls and the BB folds. The turn is the 2, I check, the button checks. the river is now a J. I decide to bet 500, which is a third of the pot. Yeah it's a thin value bet... So the button now raises, I had planned to fold of course, but I think there is some indication he's bluffing. Anyway, he raises to 2100 and I call--the other players at the table said it was an insta-call but he did take like 30 seconds to make his decision. Anyway he says "you got it" but doesn't turn over his hand. Eventually he turns over 95. Not a good start. It turns out he is a top French player, and accumulates a lot of chips early, he has about a 60K stack when we get into our next confrontation. I have to say it's the best value raise anyone has ever made against me.
In the same round, I pick up KK 5 off the button. I open for 225, player 3 off raises to
750 call by the French player, I make it 2500. Initial raiser calls, fold, and we're heads-up. The initial raiser has 15K left. Flop is 642, two hearts, I bet 5K and put him in on the turn when the 8 and the second flush draw comes in on the turn. He folds. Not a really tough hand, but just a question on how you genrally play postflop.
In the 150-300 blind round, I raise in the cutoff with AQ, the button with 16K left calls, the SB makes it 3K BB folds. the SB has about 6500 left. What is your plan? I decided to call and fold when the flop is 842, two clubs. The thing is given my range I don't know if I can fold AQ there, but maybe the best thing to do is to reraise all-in.
So a similar hand happened right after the dinner break. I have about 35K left, The aformentioned French player makes it 800, still the 150-300 round but with 25 antes. He has been playing a lot of pots but just lost a big pot an orbit earlier and seems a little tiltish based on his hand seclection, but of course he could have just been doing this all along. He is down to 60K in chips at the start of the hand I am down to 32K. I have AK and make it 2500, he makes it 8K, what do you do? Here again I called, flop was 552, he checks. I decide to check back because it just seemed out of character there. Anyway the turn is a 4 he bets 13K, and I decide to fold. I am sure I hosed this in a few ways.
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7/4/2008 5:22:37 AM EST
My Mood: complacent |
| Ok now the Main Event |
Although the main Event to me was the 50K HORSE. Of course it's painful to get there with 600K in chips and not cash, but hey that's poker. What happened? Well I lost 3 big hands toward the end, two to Doyle , one to Brandon Adams. To Brandon, I had a made 7 on 6th showing 42T7 vs 6AQ8, me betting the whole way. So I fail to improve on the river. I value bet my 7, get raised and lose to a 6 on the river. Against Doyle I had (QJ)Q vs 5(QQ) he completed, I raised, he reraised. So we catch blanks, he catches a K on 6th, on the river I catch a J, but Doyle catches another K on the river and makes KKQQ vs my QQJJ. On the last hand Doyle completes with a low card, I raise with (T7)7, Katja behind me raises with a 4 showing, it turns out she had pocked aces and Doyle has pocket Jacks. I am all-in at this point. Doyle catches a J to win vs Katja's Aces and fours. And I'm out also.
I have to say many of my friends have had success this year. Jerrod hgfalling had the biggest win, 300K in the $10K limit holdem event, finishing 2nd. I was probably more diplomatic on the air, but I certainly disagreed with most of the commentary during the final table. There was one point where the commentator (Barry Tannenbaum) pointed out Jerrod would simply give up on the turn if he check-called the flop and checked the turn. Certainly anyone who has played with us knows the check-raise turn is in our arsenal there. This is less a criticism of Barry because he's just reporting what he's observing, but it shows how it's hard to generalize a player's strategy even from observations of several hands. Also, playing short handed or heads up at a high level is different from the games Barry is familiar with and the idea of "momentum" or any effect of previous hands on how well Jerrod is going to play is certainly minimal.
Also, Bob Lurie finished 3rd in the 5K Stud-8 event, in a very tough field including Chris Ferguson who finished 2nd. Alan Jaffray made a final table of a NL tourney. Andrew prock made the final table of the 1500 Limit shootout, which required winning two tables. Matt Grapenthein also finished in the final table of the 1500 HORSE. Also congrats to fellow Team Pokerstars pros Daniel, Barry, and Dario for winning bracelets this year. I am sure many successes are left off this list so I apologize.
Matt hoss_tbf is going to have a man vs machine match. I am going to chill out a little before the Main Event, maybe play a little NL on Stars, try a few things, and be ready to play Saturday. Anyone who isn't aware, there is a PokerStars party at Rain at the Palms Monday night. It’s a burlesque party and will be a lot of fun. If you need a pass to the party, contact me in some way.
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