Lock Poker $1,500 Guaranteed Deepstack Turbo (T5,000)
Another tournament where I held the chip lead—for quite a while, in internet time—before dropping down. Still managed to grab a little profit, but not the big payout.
Hand 1. T
Came in at the 50/100 level. Only seven-handed, but I wasn’t playing it.
Hand 2. 2
Button and SB limped in. The flop was 7
Hand 3. J
CO and BTN limped in and I just came along for the ride; BB checked to the T
Hand 4. 3
UTG2 raised to 300 and everyone folded.
Hand 5. 5
Folded.
Hand 6. J
Folded.
Hand 7. J
Blinds at 75/150. Folded. As the hand played out, I would have won against the only two players who stayed in: BB with 6
Hand 8. Q
Folded.
Hand 9. T
Limped into the pot, then BTN raised to 413. SB called and so did I. Flop dropped 8
Hand 10. 6
Down about 15% from the starting stack after one-and-a-half rounds. This gets min-raised by UTG1 and nobody contests it.
Hand 11. 6
I fold.
Hand 12. 5
A walk for BB.
Hand 13. Q
One limper ahead of me and I just call. SB calls and BB checks. Flop’s 6
Hand 14. K
Blinds are up to 100/200. I open with a raise to 400; SB is my only caller. A safe-looking J
Hand 15. 3
Fold.
Hand 16. Q
Fold.
Hand 17. T
I min-raise with this hand and am heads-up with the largest stack at the table as BTN. I get an open-ended straight draw on the 5
Hand 18. 8
Blinds are 125/250/20. My stack is nearly double the size of anyone else at the table; three of the eight players have less than 3,000. I fold to a UTG1 min-raise.
Hand 19. Q
The first of the small stacks in order (UTG1) goes all-in, the other two (HJ and CO) follow, and BTN shoves for 4,000+. I’m not getting involved with this, and neither is BB. It’s (in order) T
Hand 20. 4
We’re only five-handed but I fold to an UTG min-raise.
Hand 21 3
We pick up some new players to fill the holes the massacre left behind and get another stack with nearly 14,000 in BB. Everyone folds for a walk.
Hand 22. 6
Fold.
Hand 23. Q
I open for 600 and everyone folds.
Hand 24. K
Just ten hands later, and kings again. I decide to do it traditional this time with a full table. HJ shoves for 4,350, with what I assume is a (probably lower) pair. Everyone folds and I unleash my kings on 6
Hand 25. 9
Blinds to 150/300/30. Nobody challenges my blind and I walk.
Hand 26. J
Fold. This hand saw another questionable shove. BTN shoved over a min-raise with 4,120 and 8
Hand 27. 8
No SB because of the previous hand’s action and I got another walk for the antes.
Hand 28. Q
I called a min-raise from HJ and was HU to the flop. The cards were 3
Hand 29. 2
Folded.
Hand 30. J
Uncharacteristically, I limped in with this after everyone else folded. I shouldn’t have. SB called but BB bet 1,000 and I folded.
Hand 31. K
Folded.
Hand 32. 6
Blinds to 200/400/40. Folded.
Hand 33. 5
Folded.
Hand 34. K
Opened with a min-raise to 800 and took the pot.
Hand 35. A
Folded.
Hand 36. A
Of the nine players at the table, six were at or below the starting stack (12bb or less), one had 11,000, I had 13.2K, and the biggest was 15K. The big stack in UTG2 min-raised, SB called, and I went along. The flop was a truly horrible 3
Hand 37. 7
I folded. UTG min-raised to 800 with 4K back, the guy who’d just lost to me shoved for 2,300 and it was J
Hand 38. J
Ace-jack again? It’s not suited this time. Blinds to 250/500/50. Action folds to CO with just 6.5bb, who shoves. I call, and SB calles for 25 more, which I put in. It’s me v 4
Hand 30. 4
BB gets a walk.
Hand 31. 2
Fold.
Hand 32. 7
Fold.
Hand 33. 9
Fold.
Hand 34. J
Uncharacteristically folded. but as it turned out, BB shoved over small blind’s call, SB called, and it was 4
Hand 35. 8
Blinds are 300/600/60. I fold!
Hand 36. 4
What am I? A short stack? Fold to min-raise and call pre-flop.
Hand 37. 9
BTN goes all-in. I fold. BB calls with A
Hand 38. 2
An all-in from UTG1 for 3,700 and a call from HJ. I fold, along with other prudent players.
Hand 29. T
HJ goes all-in for 5,577. I fold, but SB calls and ends up HU with Q
Hand 30. K
HJ is the only limper ahead of me but I decide to fold. There’s a king on the flop.
Hand 31. T
Fold.
Hand 32. 2
Fold.
Hand 33. 3
Fold.
Hand 34. 4
Blinds are up to 400/800/80. There’s a min-raise and a call. 5,000 in the pot, I’m nearly 10K over the other two in the hand, and with 6:1 pot odds I call. I get incredibly lucky with a 6
Hand 35. J
The other players at the table range from 5K to 16.4K, with the median about 11K. Action folds to me, BB has 11.8K and I just call. With 6
Hand 36. 6
With a raise UTG and 3-bet from middle position, I fold this. The original raiser goes all-in and gets a fold (and would eventually go on to win the tournament).
Hand 37. 4
Folded.
Hand 38. 4
Folded. Blinds are 500/1,000/100.
Hand 39. 2
Folded.
Hand 40. 3
Much as I might love deuce-three, I wasn’t opening it for at least two-thirtieths of my stack from middle position. Folded.
Hand 41. 7
Fold.
Hand 42. 9
Fold.
Hand 43. J
Fold.
Hand 44. 8
Fold.
Hand 45. 4
Fold to UTG raise and UTG1 call.
Hand 46. 9
Fold.
Hand 47. 2
Fold.
Hand 48. T
Fold.
Hand 49. K
Fold.
Hand 50. T
Fold.
Hand 51. 2
Fold.
Hand 52. 3
Fold.
Hand 53. 4
UTG1 min-raised and HJ called and I was in on a lark. The flop was perfect for me: 6
Hand 54. J
Action folded to me as the biggest stack at the table (and near the top of the leaderboard). I just called and BB checked. I checked the 6
Hand 55. 6
Fold.
Hand 56. 4
Fold.
Hand 57. 4
Fold.
Hand 58. 2
Fold.
Hand 59. 3
Fold.
Hand 60. K
I opened for 2,250 and everyone folded. It put me over 30,000.
Hand 61. 9
Might have played it elsewhere; glad I didn’t. BB was very short, with only 3,365 left after paying blinds and antes. UTG2 (the eventual tournament winner) min-raised, getting a call only from BB. The flop was 7
Hand 62. 3
An all-in from the shortest stack left at the table (7,600) won my big blind and a limper’s thou.
Hand 63. K
Normally, I’d like to see a flop with these, but an all-in bet of 12.5K from BTN put a brake on that. Fold.
Hand 64. 7
Two limps and I put my kicker issues aside to call. Four players seeing the flop of 8
Hand 65. 4
Blinds were 600/1,200/120. I folded to a min-raise by tens who were eliminated by the king-queen of the tournament winner, which put his stack on par with mine.
Hand 66. 2
Fold.
Hand 67. K
UTG raises to 2,525 with 12.6K behind. I re-raise all-in and everyone folds. Over 43K.
Hand 68. A
I call on the high from the previous hand. Action folds to SB, who calls, and BB checks. The flop is 5
Hand 69. T
UTG shoves for 8.4K. I call from my stack of 41.6K and we’re HU. He has K
Hand 70. 2
Blinds up to 800/1,600/150. UTG2 limps, HJ shoves for just 2,995, and I have to call. So does UTG2. The flop’s out of my range: T
Hand 71. T
Folded. BB shoved with sevens for 8K, got called by tourney winner who’d limped with J
Hand 72. Q
No SB. Action folded to me and I made it 5,000 to take the blind away.
Hand 73. T
Things were looking ugly as they got around to me. UTG went all-in for 6,630, UTG1 called with only 8K behind, and CO shoved for 27K. I’m not playing the Brunson hand under those circumstances. Then the BB (tourney winner) called with half his stack (his knockout two hands earlier had put him ahead of me, finally). UTG1 folded out to fight another day, and it was UTG’s Q
Hand 74. A
Some table balancing moved people around but I ended up with the chip leader, in more or less the same relative position. There were eight at the table, with three in the 10K range, one about 23K and two more around 35K. I folded this hand. Three players went to the river, one was knocked out with sixes and the tournament leader lost a chunk with a set of queens against a 6
Hand 75. 8
Blinds to 1,000/2,000/200. I have 25bb. Despite the success of a suited 8
Hand 76. 3
Really? Again? Fold.
Hand 77. Q
Fold.
Hand 78. A
Big stack min-raises. I call. BB shoves for 9,200, and we both call. T
Hand 79. 3
We’ve picked up a third large stack at the table who’s got something between my stack and the tournament winner’s 77.5K. Three other players with 30-40K, one with 19K, ann one with just a BB. I fold this.
Hand 80. 7
Blinds to 1,250/2,500/500. I have 27bb. Fold. We lose the small stack on this hand, and tournament winner’s stack drops below mine.
Hand 81. 3
Fold.
Hand 82. 5
Fold.
Hand 83. [qh4c] UTG1
Fold.
Hand 84. 9
Fold.
Hand 85. 8
Fold to an all-in from SB.
Hand 86. 7
Fold.
Hand 87. J
Could this run of cards have any less suck? Fold.
Hand 88. 9
Fold.
Hand 89. T
Blinds to 1,500/3,000/300. I have 21bb. Fold.
Hand 90. T
Deja vu. Fold.
Hand 91. 7
Fold.
Hand 92. J
Tourney winner limps in, SB comes along and I check. The flop is nothing I want to see: K
Hand 93. T
Fold. Two stacks in the mid-20K range go up against each other with A
Hand 94. 5
Yay! The action on the table’s resulted in me being moved into the big blind on another table with the current chip leader. The new makeup has the chip leader with 114K, two stacks in the mid-50s (including me), two in the low 40s, two at 30K and one with 23K. Chip leader raises min-plus from UTG2 and everyone folds.
Hand 95. 7
Another min-raise from chip leader, and I fold these out of position.
Hand 96. 7
How cool is it to get sevens on my seventy-seventh hand? Cool enough to call a 12.5K raise from UTG2. We’re heads-up, the flop is 4
Hand 97. 2
Fold. SB tries to raise chip leader’s BB and gets faced with an all-in.
Hand 98. 5
Blinds to 2,000/4,000/400. I have 9bb. Fold. CO goes all-in with A
Hand 99. J
Fold.
Hand 100. Q
Fold.
Hand 101. Q
Fold.
Hand 102. Q
Fold.
Hand 103. 2
CO raises to 12,000 and wins the pot.
Hand 104. 5
Big stack (UTG1) raises just enough to leave themselves with exactly 100,000. CO calls, I fold. Flop is 4
Hand 105. J
Blinds are 2,500/5,000/500. I have just under 6bb. I go all-on over an 11K raise by the big stack. I’m heads-up to the flop against 9
VPIP for this game: 23%. Five pairs. I saw 20 flops and won ten of them.
Ninety minutes, 105 hands. 16th of 169 entries. +92% ROI. (Top prize was +3200%)