FULL TILT POKER BLOG

#040 – FTOPS #7 Update C – Take Arms Against a Sea of Troubles

Posted by Editor | Filed under FTOPS

We’re at the second break. I have 21,084 chips, good for 13th, though we’re about 7-8 hours from that being meaningful. There are 356 players left, and the average stack 8,500. The next level is 120-240 (25 ante), so the average stack is still more than 30 BBs. Several Full Tilt Poker pros are making a run – David Singer, David Chiu, Phil Gordon, and Layne Flack. Many others have plenty of chips heading into the third hour of play.

Phil Gordon, one of pros doing well in tonight’s tournament

Here is how it looked to me, while I was playing in it.

How long can you last in a tournament without ever playing a hand? In Paul Sexton’s case, the answer was 1 hour 47 minutes. He wasn’t present and was all-in for his last 55 chips. bruno200 made a minimum raise in early position. Two other players called it and I, in the small blind with 5s-2s, did the same. The flop was no help to me but the ace matched the one in Bruno’s hand, so he bet 3/4 of the pot. Everyone else folded, the absent Paul Sexton had K-2 and even though he caught a king on the turn, he was eliminated. I’m sure he won’t brood over his elimination for too long.

Odd hand about ten minutes before the break, the sort of play I see online but not in live tournaments (not that I play live tournaments anywhere near as often as I play online). I had 7h-6h in midle position and raised the 160 blind to 420. bruno200, in the small blind, called. Tony Pisser in the BB folded. The flop was 8-9-2, all spades.

bruno led out by betting the minimum, 120. Doyle Brunson historically referred to something like this as a “post Oak bluff.” “I never post-Oak bluff,” he said, the words almost jumping off the original Super/System like a bellow. I’m expected to bet here and I want to. I’m worried that this player thinks I’ll believe his 120 bet (the pot is nearly 1,000) is a sign of weakness when he has a couple spades. Still, I raised to 900 and he called. The next card was the six of diamonds, making me a dinky pair.

Again, bruno bets 120. This time, I just call him. I figure he must have at least one spade and maybe two. Or he has to have a higher pair than my six. He checks, and so do I.

My sixes take it. He had Jh-Th. (What a mess that hand almost ended up being. He had the higher end of the straight draw and the higher flush draw.) This takes me to 22,000

But I’m curious if anyone has ideas on ways to play that minimum-bet thingee.

I climb to fifth on the leaderboard with over 25,000 chips when I raise with Ah-3h. Big_D_Money right behind me calls and Tony Pisser calls from the big blind. The flop was 3d-6d-Ks. Because I picked up a piece, I bet it. Tony called. We both checked the queen of spades on the turn.

I knew that meant he would bet the river and was trying to decide whether I’d call – probably not, unless the bet was very small. The river was the ace of clubs, which made it easy. He bet 1,600. I didn’t raise because he could conceivably beat me with plenty of the hands he would call a raise with.

He flopped an open-ended straight draw tih 5-4 and bluffed at the river. But if the ace hadn’t fallen, I probably would have folded.

I lost 4,000 chips in a multi-limper pot with 8-7 against 9-8 on a flop od 8-8-2. I check-raised the other player and he moved all-in. I knew there was some chance he had an eight (and would probably limp with 8-9s or A-8s if he had an eight) but there was no reason to flat-call. I couldn’t have avoided an all-in based on the number of chips he had.

I’m sure I’ve lost when the river is the three of spades.

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