FULL TILT POKER BLOG

#021 – FTOPS #4 Update A – PLO

Posted by Editor | Filed under FTOPS, Huckleberry Seed

I’m starting this at 12:20 AM EST. The players in the PLO with rebuys have been at it for 3 hours 15 minutes. I busted long ago, not just from this event but also from the $35,000 Guarantee. I’m trying to get myself eliminated from the $30,000 Guarantee at this moment. Someone is following me around telling me how bad I am and, apparently, I’m trying to prove it to him.

At the break, there were 110 players left in FTOPS #4. Average chips were 30,727. The leader had 114,000. Fourth in chips was Jon Bloch, Andy’s brother. His avatar is, of course, the rock. If he wins this but doesn’t get his own avatar, he should at least make Full Tilt put a cowboy hat on it. Stuart Paterson leads the Full Tilt pros with 73,000 chips, in sixth place. Alan Cunningham has 42,000 chips, Paul Wolfe, 27,000 [Paul has since busted], Huck Seed, 23,000.

Stuart Paterson, who led the Full Tilt Poker pros in chips at the break

A few words about Huckleberry Seed. He was the last Full Tilt pro standing in two of the first three FTOPS. He was at my table right after the first break. He was low on chips and I was cruising. It’s easy to think you know how to play this game when you start with strong cards and/or get hit just right with the flop. I was in a couple hands and thought I was going to bust him. But regardless of how I played, he either kept me from betting as much as I could have, or folded. Meanwhile, I’m long gone and he is still surviving.

He doesn’t have big chips, but he’s spent about 16 hours over the last 3 nights saying goodnight to 95% of the field without having big chips. [Huck busted in 75th, before I posted this.]

I was undecided about playing this event, and signed up just thirty seconds before it started. On the negative side, I’ve played one live PLO tournament (and I played scared) and just a few online PLO tournaments (with little success). On the positive side, I worked with Chris Ferguson on the PLO chapter of the Full Tilt Poker Tournament Edition. On the negative side, Chris wasn’t satisfied with the chapter until the very end, and told me that his thinking about PLO was still evolving. On the positive side, I had all that inaccessible money burning a hole in my cyberpocket from winning the $30,000 Guarantee last night. On the negative, it was a small field with a lot of tough players.

Money won out. I decided to play. There were a total of 681 starters. The tourney’s guarantee was just $50,000, and that was wiped out before we started. In defense of Disco Stu and his tournament staff, they are still learning about rebuy-tournament behavior and didn’t have much idea about how the satellites would go.

There were a total of 1,135 rebuys. Of the 464 players at the first break, 328 added-on. That made the total prize pool $214,400. 63 spots will get paid. Last money is $536. First-place money is $52,528.

I immediately re-bought, which I thought was standard strategy. It didn’t look like any of the 13 pros immediately re-bought, so I was obviously out of touch on this. There were 135 instant rebuys and I noticed, after several hands, that many of the pros had 3,000 in chips.

Many interesting tidbits from the first hour:

*Starting chips were only 1,500. Eric Froelich had 8,790 chips in the first four minutes.

*Clonie Gowen and Miss Lulu, the two players I said I’d follow at the beginning, were seated next to each other at the same time. It may a little while before I get to write up the results of watching the two of them, but that made my job easier. Unfortunately, after 20 minutes, the table broke, or one of them got moved. (I should confess that I once played a game of PLO with Clonie and Miss Lulu.)

*One table had Eric Froelich, JohnnyBax, Hoosier Alum, and mattyv.

*My big moment of the night was doubling up in PLO while winning a big pot from JohnnyBax in the $35,000 Guarantee. I had called his late-position raise with J-4o from the big blind. The board ended up with two jacks and two sevens. Because I didn’t bet out and he just called, I didn’t see until a minute later by looking at the hand history that he had A-A. I just assumed he was big-timin’ me by raising in late position. He said, “vnc [very nice call] preflop.” I told him that now I knew what his raising requirements were for late-position, I’d give his raises a lot more respect.

I don’t know if my witty comeback had much of an impact on him. He soon, in the PLO, got involved in the biggest hand of the first hour. When it was over, he was chip leader with over 19,000 chips. Five players, including Bax, called the 40 big blind. The big blind raised to 280. Four players called that. The last player, in the small blind, raised to 1,960. That opened the flood gates. Eventually, four players went all-in. JohnnyBax had them covered.

These are the hands they had:

Small blind: 3d-Td-Js-9d

Big blind: Ac-Ah-Ts-5d

mattyv (one of the players in the middle of this who called along and is currently 19th in chips with 51 players to go): Qs-As-Kc-5c

JohnnyBax: Qd-Ks-Qc-Jc

This was the board: Th-9s-5s-8c-Kh

Johnny Bax won with the straight.

After briefly terrorizing Huck Seed, I busted during the second hour, finishing 358th. I also busted out of the $35,000 Guarantee and the $30,000 Guarantee. (I busted out of the $30,000 Guarantee with J-J, facing K-K. Last night, I’d have been the player with K-K. Or, because the board was 2-3-4 after the flop when all the chips went in, I’d have been playing A-5.)

Miss Lulu put on a clinic during the first hour. I say this because she was in a showdown in about 50% of the hands. I will review the hands and let you know if there is anything interesting or instructive. Lulu has a bracelet in PLO, so it’s a nice opportunity to see how a pro plays the rebuy stage of one of these things.

Clonie Gowen was the opposite. She wasn’t getting cards and wasn’t trying to make moves. I counted three small pots that she won in the first hour, twice with premium cards and once in the big blind with a pretty good hand. None of the pots was larger than 600 chips. I think Miss Lulu was TIPPING bigger than that.

Lulu went out in 135th, with a pair of aces. She had 6,200 left (the average was about four times that much), and raised the maximum to 2,700 after someone had limped in. KudelyKQ, who is now the chip leader with 43 to go, re-raised. Lulu called all-in.

Lulu: As-Ah-8h-8d

KudelyKQ: Kd-Kh-Js-9s.

The board was 6s-5c-8d-Ks-9c. The king on the turn made KudelyKQ a set and eliminated Miss Lulu.

In addition to going through some of Miss Lulu’s early hands, I am composing a nursery rhyme about her. That’ll take a little while.

Clonie Gowen was eliminated shortly after, in 126th. From the big blind, she raised some limpers all-in for 2,856. She had Ah-Kc-5c-5s. Two of the limpers staged a re-raising war, and another one after the flop.

ep1 and pugnacious23 each had over 20,000 in chips. ep1 had 8d-9c-Ts-Jh. Pug had Ac-7h-6h-7d.

The flop, which was were ep1 and Pug got in most of their chips, was Tc-Ks-Qd. The turn was the two of clubs and the river was the ace of spades. ep1 won 68,000 chips with the straight.

It has taken me a long, long time to write this. By now, it is 1:45 AM. The tournament is down to 36 players. KudelyKQ has a giant lead with 384,000. anakinso is second with 234,000. ep1 is fourth with 180,000. Allen Cunningham is 13th with 98,000. Stuart Paterson and Andy Bloch’s brother Jon are hanging on.

Coming up:

*More on PLO, though that might be tomorrow.
*Andy Bloch has discovered the Google book project and is IMing me fascinating things he is finding in century (or more) old gambling books.
*Miss Lulu’s night, in rhyme. (I’m not promising anything here, and DEFINITELY not promising anything good.)
*Plenty of old topics I never got around to earlier, like John Hennigan’s WPT win in AC, the coincident Circuit Event in Iowa, and lots more.

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