 Vegas July 2014 - Main Event satellite |
| Day 8 - Aria finally |
| Last Updated: 2014-07-11 12:31:11 |
| The only problem with getting into the money in a tournament of any size that starts at 6PM is that it can make it tough to get sleep and still make your 1:00 tournament the next day. But trouper that I am...
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| Got going just in time to shower, hit the buffet at Aria and get me to the poker room for their first daily tournament after their massive WPT event. Hopefully next year they'll be better prepared for the crowds.
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| What was nice about this tournament was for a change my playable hands were a lot more evenly distributed over time, so I didn't have any insanely long stretches of folding, folding, folding.
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| On the other hand, there weren't a lot of notable ones. Played a lot of position, continuation bet almost every time, generally got away with it when I missed. But there were two crazy ones that can talk about.
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| Going into the first break I'm around 7500 from a 10K starting stack, I think under the gun raised, a very loose player called and I call. Flop comes 5-7-9 two clubs.
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| UTG bets out something like 1100, loose guy calls.
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| Obviously a flush draw and two overs is a pretty big hand. But I'm not going to reraise half my stack so a standard raise is out. I want to see both cards and I don't want to have to face a bet on the turn if I just call so that's out...so my options are fold or push all in. And this is way too big of a hand to fold given my stack size the fact that this tournament has a long way to go.
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| Also, these two have shown they'll fold to serious aggression so when you add the fold equity to my equity in the pot, there really is no option other than all in. I'm perfectly happy to take the pot right there, I'm perfectly happy to get a call. Sometimes poker is really simple...
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| But I did pause to act like I was thinking about it (see previous BLOGs, like yesterday, for more on that subject).
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| UTG disgustedly throws his cards in the muck (he'd later say he had a pair and a straight draw that would have hit, so he probably made a bad mathematical laydown anyway) but loose guy goes into the tank.
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| I'm thinking that if he calls I'm probably flipping at best because like I said, he's folded to strong aggression to this point. He thinks and thinks, starts to fold, counts out the call, starts to put his chips in...poor guy was really torn on what to do.
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| He makes the call.
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| And rolls over J-10 of spades. WOW. I have him crushed. Before he called he must have figured he had 10 outs twice. After he called he thought he had 7 outs (which I heard him say to someone after the hand was over), but really he had five b/c the 8 and 10 of clubs were no good for him. And if either hit on the turn I still had a lot of outs on the river. So in that moment between the time he calls and the time I see his hand I'm convinced I can only be a flip at best and it turned out I had way the best of it. The board runs out two blanks and I more than double up.
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| I build up a few more chips after the break when this inexplicable one comes up.
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| Again 2-3 limpers, I look down at A-10 suited (clubs again I think) and raise out. I get 1-2 callers. Flop comes A-J-10. I make a sizeable bet, I get one caller, an Asian woman that had made some interesting decisions to this point, I'll put it that way.
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| Turn is an offsuit Queen. She checks, I bet half my remaining stack, she thinks for about 2 seconds and goes over the top! WTF???
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| Well what am I going to do? I can't be ahead, but I have to at least have 3-4 kings to save me, right? And 2/3 of my stack is already in...I make the crying call.
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| And there's that moment again between the time of the call and the time you actually see what they have where you can't possibly be ahead...and she rolls over A-6. She is drawing dead. She was the table chip leader, now I am.
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| Thing went fairly well for a while, but A-J suited let me down when I got into a 3-way all in on a board of J-8-6 against two shorter stacks. The first player had J-10 which got me pretty happy until the other person rolled over 8-6. 6 on the turn to leave me with only 2 outs on the river and no luck.
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| After that it was grind, grind, grind. I spent the rest of my tournament in my usual place hovering between 10 and 20 big blinds but I did eke out the bottom money position (27th paying 27 out of about 225).
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| Back to back cashes after all that frustration. Small cashes, but in the money nonetheless. Things are turning around!
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| At that point it was about 8:00. I was taken to the cage to get paid, they laid the chips out in front of me, I handed most of them back and said "buy me into the 7:00". Talk about #ontothenextone.
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| You would think they see this all the time, but both the cashier and the floor guy that led me over were very amused by this.
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| This one didn't go so well. I did outlast over half the field, but basically I ran a 2-street bluff where I should have run a 3-barrell.
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| A-5 suited in the cutoff, I raise out, blinds call. Flop 3-4-6, 2 clubs.
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| I c-bet, BB calls.
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| Turn a K. Maybe I can represent a K. I bet 1/3 of my stack. He thinks a bit and calls.
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| In hindsight, which is always 20-20, I should have read that he wasn't strong here. It was a reluctant call.
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| The river was a 9 of clubs, completing the flush draw. He quickly checks and I start to count out a bet. Unfortunately the only reasonable bet I can make is half my stack so I'm in a really tough spot. An all in looks bluffy, a bet of half my stack is really strong looking but isn't enough to chase him...and do I really want to have to play on with like 3-4 big blinds?
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| I have a moment where I think I should go all in. But I decide he could be on a flush draw and is hoping I shove and I don't pull the trigger. I check.
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| He rolls over 5-3.
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| Gasps when I muck without showing. Nobody thought I would show up with air. But obviously a three barrell would almost certainly have worked. Darn it.
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| Well somewhere along the way I get one double up, but the next time I went all-in I tried the stop-and-go I wish I'd tried the day before. As always, I never pick the right time to try that move and I was done. Oh well.
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| After that we ate at the Aria cafe for a very late dinner. Last year they changed the menu at that restaurant and we didn't like the changes so we had crossed it off our list. But apparently we got over it because this is our third meal there this trip.
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| That's all I got for now, Friday will be more Aria. |
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