pendleton update: tournament success and crossbook horror
After 0-fering the poker tournaments for about a week, I finally found some success at the $215 LO8 tourney on wednesday. There were 255 entrants and I started off at a horrible tight table, with Linda Johnson on my left (owner or editor or something of Cardplayer and the person who knocked me out of the 7s8 tourney i went deep in). Anyway, i maintained at that table for a while, and mercifully it got broken early, and I was moved to an amazing juicy table, where at least half the players were awful and the other half were merely mediocre.
My general strategy was to play like a nit, which is mostly what i did. Went into the dinner break with 1.5x average stack, came back, maintained some more for a while, and then with about 5 tables left (3 payed) I went on a mad hot streak where I kept getting AA-wheel, or double suited aces and flopping top set. Busted a lot of people, and by the time we were down to 3 tables I had like 1/8 the chips in play for a clear chip lead. Played a slightly more aggressive version of my normal game, and used my knowledge of hot/cold values well versus shortstacks and by the time we hit the final table I had 1/3 of the chips in play.
Its worth noting that I had swapped 5% with two other players in the tourney, once at the dinner break when we had comparable chips, and again with another guy with comparable chips and two tables left. One of them busted 7th and the other 4th in the tourney, so apparently, not only do I play well, but I swap well too.
Anyway, went into the final table with a good chip lead. People kept suggesting we lock up more money for everyone and play for the rest, but I kept refusing, as that was just horrible for me as the big stack. Finally at 6 handed, Id lost the chip lead (4 people had like 80k, I had like 180k, and another guy Id lost a big pot to had like 280k). Again a deal is proposed, the shorties wanna lock up $5k each (6th place pays $3k) I go up to a bunch of young internet players i know fooling around on a laptop, hand them the payout sheet and tell them my chipstack and the number of chips in play and ask them if they can find a place to do an ICM calculation. After a few minutes they say they cant find anything, but I dont think they tried. The rest of the players and the TD talk me into a split with $5k for the shorties, $6.5k for me, and $7.5k for the bigstack. That leaves us with like $7.2k to split between first second and third, and theres also a carribean cruised that goes to first place. I agree to it, and the internet kids immediately show up and tell me what an awful deal it was, and basically start mocking me about it, which makes me want to kill them. They were like 10 feet away when it went down, and they could have said somethign to me at the time, plus Im still playing a fucking tournament and I dont need the aggravation.
We bust 3 of the shorties, including Jason, a guy I swapped with whos a good pro online PLO8 player. Then one of the other shorties goes on a tear and cripples and eventually busts the guy who HAD been chip leader in 3rd place. We go into headsup and he has a bit of a chip lead. Dont really remember how deep we were. I had maybe 16 small bets and he had maybe 20? Something like that. Even with short stacks I felt good about my HU LO8 game, even though I found out that this is the guy who won the same event last year. So we play a bit, Im very aggressive, and I find that hes hardly ever craising flops, so I can mostly fold when he leads and cbet or bet when he doesnt. Chip lead changes hands a few times. Were both guaranteed an extra $2k on top of what we locked up, so were now playing for an extra $2k for first, plus the cruise, plus the bracelet. At one point, when im out chipped like 4/3 the guy proposes another chop, well split the remaining prize money, Ill get the cruise, and hell get first place and the bracelet. I go and consult with my friends on the rail, and theyre like FUCKINGHELLYESDOITNOW, so I wander back, shake his hand, and say "congratulations, sir". So now hes the back to back champion, and gets a silver bracelet and his picture taken, but I won $1500 more than him in a tournament he "won" plus a cruise valued at like $1900.
So that was awesome, and then I went out to a bar and played pool and later got yelled at by drunken poker dealers. The next day was the crossbook horror, which I may recount later.
My general strategy was to play like a nit, which is mostly what i did. Went into the dinner break with 1.5x average stack, came back, maintained some more for a while, and then with about 5 tables left (3 payed) I went on a mad hot streak where I kept getting AA-wheel, or double suited aces and flopping top set. Busted a lot of people, and by the time we were down to 3 tables I had like 1/8 the chips in play for a clear chip lead. Played a slightly more aggressive version of my normal game, and used my knowledge of hot/cold values well versus shortstacks and by the time we hit the final table I had 1/3 of the chips in play.
Its worth noting that I had swapped 5% with two other players in the tourney, once at the dinner break when we had comparable chips, and again with another guy with comparable chips and two tables left. One of them busted 7th and the other 4th in the tourney, so apparently, not only do I play well, but I swap well too.
Anyway, went into the final table with a good chip lead. People kept suggesting we lock up more money for everyone and play for the rest, but I kept refusing, as that was just horrible for me as the big stack. Finally at 6 handed, Id lost the chip lead (4 people had like 80k, I had like 180k, and another guy Id lost a big pot to had like 280k). Again a deal is proposed, the shorties wanna lock up $5k each (6th place pays $3k) I go up to a bunch of young internet players i know fooling around on a laptop, hand them the payout sheet and tell them my chipstack and the number of chips in play and ask them if they can find a place to do an ICM calculation. After a few minutes they say they cant find anything, but I dont think they tried. The rest of the players and the TD talk me into a split with $5k for the shorties, $6.5k for me, and $7.5k for the bigstack. That leaves us with like $7.2k to split between first second and third, and theres also a carribean cruised that goes to first place. I agree to it, and the internet kids immediately show up and tell me what an awful deal it was, and basically start mocking me about it, which makes me want to kill them. They were like 10 feet away when it went down, and they could have said somethign to me at the time, plus Im still playing a fucking tournament and I dont need the aggravation.
We bust 3 of the shorties, including Jason, a guy I swapped with whos a good pro online PLO8 player. Then one of the other shorties goes on a tear and cripples and eventually busts the guy who HAD been chip leader in 3rd place. We go into headsup and he has a bit of a chip lead. Dont really remember how deep we were. I had maybe 16 small bets and he had maybe 20? Something like that. Even with short stacks I felt good about my HU LO8 game, even though I found out that this is the guy who won the same event last year. So we play a bit, Im very aggressive, and I find that hes hardly ever craising flops, so I can mostly fold when he leads and cbet or bet when he doesnt. Chip lead changes hands a few times. Were both guaranteed an extra $2k on top of what we locked up, so were now playing for an extra $2k for first, plus the cruise, plus the bracelet. At one point, when im out chipped like 4/3 the guy proposes another chop, well split the remaining prize money, Ill get the cruise, and hell get first place and the bracelet. I go and consult with my friends on the rail, and theyre like FUCKINGHELLYESDOITNOW, so I wander back, shake his hand, and say "congratulations, sir". So now hes the back to back champion, and gets a silver bracelet and his picture taken, but I won $1500 more than him in a tournament he "won" plus a cruise valued at like $1900.
So that was awesome, and then I went out to a bar and played pool and later got yelled at by drunken poker dealers. The next day was the crossbook horror, which I may recount later.