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#338 – FTOPS #8 – The Live Blog
This is my attempt to play and blog Event #8, $120 + $9 NLHE KO. I will keep all my posts of the event in this entry, with the most recent just below this introduction:
2:28 PM – And then I’m out. Following a limp, AlwaysLimp min-raised. I had JJ and wanted to get him to push all-in. He obviously had something he liked. I made it 2000, which was a third of my chips. He flat-called. The flop came 4-4-A. I’m just screwed here if he’s got an ace. I mean, I suppose I can fold if he bets but he’ll bet with or without an ace. It’s my SB so it’s my decision. I push in for my remaining chips. He calls with AQ, the third time he has shown that hand down. He’s also shown down AJ, AT, and AA, so I guess I could have put him on the ace but … I don’t know. I just refused to believe a could could inadvertently keep getting that lucky with no idea where he’s at. At least that’s what I’m telling myself for now. I’m certain I didn’t cover myself with glory in my last couple hands with him.
2:22 PM – First scalp! Unfortunately, it came right after lost over 3000 chips to the Limp King. He was limping with AQ and made two-pair. Guys who play like this victimize me from time to time because I can’t get myself to believe they’d limp in a shorthanded game with a strong ace. I gotta regroup, and against that guy. I’ve got about 6000.
2:15 PM – While we’re on break, I note that the 4 PM event, $300 + $22 NLHE, now has 2850 players. The guarantee is for $1M so that means 3333 players. I think it’s going to get over 4000. WAY OVER 4000. It’ll be a beast.
2:10 PM – On break. I have 9327. The average is 8446 – creeping up on me. I made some great marginal plays earlier. Clearly, if I can point out a flaw in my game, it’s that I make those plays better early in a tournament than later. And that’s because the individual chips are less valuable early on; I’m not afraid to make a marginal play. Unfortunately, I struggle with the concept that the chips are more valuable and the consequences of losing chips increases as the tournament goes on. But I’m working on it, okay? 2131 players left. No names I recognize on top of the leaderboard. The leader has 57k. Second has 36k. What on earth is that about? There were 32 pros in this, 12 still in, none in the top 300. If I’m going anywhere in this tournament – including out – the next hour should tell the story.
2:05 PM – 4 mins from break. I’m back to 9977. Still over 2200 players left. I’ve lost a few chips in marginal situations, calling a 3-way all-in among short stacks, folding to what I eventually learned was alway-limps [see previous update] AA.
1:56 PM – Some fun hands here. I had Ah6h in the small blind. The cutoff, fairly new to the table but who seems to want to limp into every pot, limped and the button raised to 640 (80-160 blinds). I called. The flop came 8c4h7h. That gave me a chance to get in a big check-raise, which I did. The raiser, a pretty conservative player, thought awhile about calling all-in and folded. That got me back over 11,000.
1:52 PM – I’m at 9895. I was up past 11,000 but made two silly call-off-your-chips-because-you’ve-got-em plays. There are 2700 players left and the chip average is 6600. There’s one player at the table who’s not physically present. He has 130 chips and will be all in on his big blind.
1:42 PM – My nemesis (or the guy who thinks I’m HIS nemesis) busted. Tough break, too. He had KK and got it all in against QQ after the flop. Turn was a queen.
1:41 PM – I decided NOT to play the turbo sat for the next event. I’m at 9795 though still no scalps.
1:30 PM – I think one guy at the table is seriously steamed at me right now. He’s the one who said he had QQ when I bet him out with JJ and a pair of sixes when he said he had a pair of jacks when I bet him out with four hearts on board. I just won another pair of pots off him and I just hope no one encourages him to read the blog while the tourney is going on. (He’s going crazy trying to figure out what I had on those earlier hands where he folded.) He limped and I was in the BB with 9-5o. The flop is 8s5sTh. I bet 200. He calls. The turn is 6h. We both check. The river is another ten. He bets 400. I figure there’s no way on earth he has a ten and he’s played it like this. I suppose he could have an eight but he’s got me down as such a tricky player that I think he’d be worried I had a ten. I call. He has Q-Jo and I take the 1500 pot. Next time on my big blind, six hands later, he raises and I call with that hand Q-Jo. The flop came J-8-4, 2 clubs. He bet and I called. I was willing to brave him hitting an overcard or having clubs; I figured I’m in the lead and he’ll bluff at it at least once if he’s whiffed and I don’t bet. We both check a rag on the turn. I bet out when a queen hits on the river. He calls – he had AQ. He certainly didn’t do anything wrong, just got unlucky, but that’s got to compound the feeling that I’m somehow out to get him.
1:15 PM – I’m up to 7500. On the first hand after break, I raised the 80 BB to 240 on my button. I had 6d5d. The BB called. The flop came Jh6h2. I had second pair and bet 360. The BB raised to 1360. I felt very strongly that he didn’t have a heart. I called. Clearly, if I was correct, then I was behind. But this left me opportunities to bluff, opens up the possibility he bluffed (though very unlikely without a heart, and I really didn’t think he had a heart in his hand), and leaves open the possibility of a split or a chance for me to pass him with a five or a six. The key thing is that I didn’t think he had a heart. The turn was the queen of hearts. He checked and I bet 800, which was half his remaining stack and a quarter of the pot. While thinking it over, he said, “Are you xxxxing serious?” He folded and said he had AJ. If that’s true, that would make twice that I got him to lay down a better hand. (He’s the player who said he folded QQ after I bet out with JJ on a flop of 2-4-5.) That’s unheard of in my tournament experience on Full Tilt.
1:02 PM – First break. There are 4286 players left, average stack is about 4200. I have 5805. I moved up on another of those weird marginal plays. I had 8d-4d in the big blind. UTG made it 180 and another player called. This is a very marginal call but it’s early, it’s multiway, and I thought I’d see what developed. The flop was 3c8c9s. I checked but so did the raiser. The flat-caller bet 240. (I think there was 570 in the pot.) I raised with second pair to 750. He called, which really bothered me. Turn is 6d. I check and he bets 540. I call. I’m worried he has a nine, but I don’t want to discount completely that he’s taking a shot with overcards. He’s done it already. The river is the 2h. I check and he checks. I win the pot; he had AsTs. He gets some of it back on the next hand, though, when he raises UTG and I reraise with JJ. He calls. The flop comes Ac2cKc. He checks and I decide to check. I don’t have th Jc and don’t know how I could get him to fold any drawing hand here, not to mention everything he could have that beats me. The turn is the 3c. He bets and I fold. He tells someone at the table he had As-2s.
12:55 – Most of the table is playing 40% of their hands, yet I get a walk on my BB with KK. That’s a bad omen. 4545 chips but no scalps. I’d like to bust at least 5 so I can share with Julius_Goat. He deserved better than he got. (Maybe I should look ahead to NOT busting myself rather than busting 5 players when I haven’t dispatched anyone yet.)
12:50 – Only 4700 left. I’m trying to decide whether to play the turbo satellite into Event #9. I’m already in the event ($300 + $22) but there’s so much value for me in MTT turbos that I instinctively want to. But I’ve got my hands more than full here, playing this one, blogging it, trying to eat lunch, trying to catch up on the six or so blogs I owe you from the earlier events. And it’s not like I’m burning up the FTOPS so bad that I can handle additional tasks on top of playing Event #8.
12:44 – 5,190. Almost all the chips I’ve gotten have been from calling. One exception. I raised with JJ. The player to my left flat-called and the player to his left made it 315. I honestly wasn’t sure what I wanted to do or where I was in the hand. I called. I guess I was looking for an excuse to drop the hand but I’m having trouble doing that with JJ preflop at a 6-handed table. The flop came 2-4-5. For some reason, with 1000 in the pot, I led out, something I almost never do, for 600. The player in between folded and the reraiser thought it over and finally folded. I honestly don’t like the way I played any aspect of that hand. Though the reraiser, asking what I had, said he had QQ. I find that a little hard to believe, especially because he’s playing 40% of his hands, but if he’s telling the truth then I did something right.
12:16 PM – Julius_Goat is out. I feel bad for him; he really got cold decked. He lost AA to JJ when a jack hit on the river – though he still had 2200 chips, really doing a good job of losing the minimum. On the very nice hand, he had AQ and played it aggressively against 2 callers. The flop was 2-K-Q and the ace on the turn made him aces-up but made JT a straight, which was how he went out. Check out his account of the crushing tragedy on The_Goat_Speaks.
12:12 PM – I’m up to 3,600 from a pair of hands where I raised and made top pair and an opponent with nothing tried to call and bluff on the river.
12:03 PM – I missed the first few hands. I had to pick up Valerie at Sunday school. I’m not making excuses but it seems like I’m racing into these things without any time to get my head together. Julius_Goat is in this one, my runner up from the “Michael Craig is Giving it Away” contest. Holy crap! 6000 entries!?! Full Tilt has actually maxxed out its system on how many entries it can take. I wish I’d have been around to see the tournament physically close to new entries. I wonder at what time that happened?
