Bubble Trouble

Encore Club $10,000 Guarantee (T10,000)

I hadn’t had a chance to play the Encore $10K for more than a month and I was eager to get back to where I’d made my biggest-ever cash.

I got in a little late and ran into a couple of aggressive players to my right who were stomping on pots, even at 50/100, which lost me a few hundred the first couple of hands. On the fourth hand I played, I made a small raise UTG with [7x 7x] from early position and hit middle set. I made a continuation bet, got a couple callers, and true to form, the guy in BB raised to 2,000. I snapped all-in. Everyone folded around to him and he sat and faux thought about it for a while, then folded and I took my chips.

I wasn’t taking notes of my hands, but the first big jump in my stack came 45 minutes into the game with a knockout of seat 1 that put me up to T23,000. I took another player out ten minutes later, and was over T30,000.

Had a couple of setbacks after that. Played [ax kx] and totally missed the flop, folded, then watched the hand contested by [ax jx] and [ax tx], neither of which made a pair. Preflop-folded one of those SB hands for a call of 150 that would have turned into a very deceptive full house with a lot of chips in contention. Then, when I did call down a hand, I had the weaker ace and was down to T27,000.

Got an add-on at the break and [qx qx] for the first hand, which won and put me over T40,000. Than a call of an all-in took me down to T32,000, but that wasn’t the bottom, because I fell to T24,400 before I began a recovery.

One of the pot-stompers mentioned above had been showing a number of bluffs (although he hadn’t been showing good hands). I had [ac qx] when three clubs hit the flop and I followed him all the way down to the river as he poured chips into the pot. I had him slightly out-chipped, and when that last club showed up I forced him all-in to call, which he did. He looked pretty disgusted with me. I was up over T58,000.

By three-and-a-half hours in, I was up to T75,000 after another knockout. Fifteen minutes later, with just over half the field of 96 gone, I had an even T84000; more than twice the chip average and a little more than half what I figured the average chip stack would be at the 12-player payout level.

A big knockout right around midnight (five hours in) put me at T135,000, more than 60 big blinds. I was moved to a new table, with a player on my left who was sitting on an increasingly short stack. I made change twice for him for T5,000 chips, then he managed to triple up to around T20,000 after catching two nines on the board with [ax 9x] against two aces with better kickers. Shortly after that, he doubled up and then some with [kx kx] in BB. I was BTN the hand after that, action folded to me, and I put out a raise with [as 9s] to T13,000, which he kicked up with an all-in for over T30,000 more from SB. I thought about it for a little bit and called, but he had [kx kx] a second hand in a row, which actually doubled him up past my chip count, once I’d paid him off. At the third break, I was down to T85,000, below chip average with nine players between me and the money.

A table change when we consolidated to two and another hour and I’d managed to recover a bit. Six hours and twenty minutes into the game, I had T123,000—about T20,000 more than average. 20 big blinds.

I was moved to the other table to balance, and had the tournament chip leader on my left. I made another mistake, simply calling an UTG raise to T17,000 from BB with [ax kx]. He exploited my T15,000 donk bet on the [qx qx 9x] flop and shoved. I didn’t want to go out before the money; I had to lay it down. If I was going to play it, I should have shoved pre-flop.

I’d had the 4,000/8,000/1,000 blinds sweep through me at the other table before I moved in front of the blinds at the new table, so I was down to T58,000. We were down to 14 players, there had been an ongoing discussion about paying a double bubble, but the big stack was refusing. Then he lost more than half of his stack on a semi-bluff just as I picked up [6x 6x] in middle position. I probably should have re-proposed the double bubble before I shoved. I was called by SB with [9x 9x] and he caught a nine on the flop. Unless I’d had [ax ax], I would have been a goner even with kings. I could hear the bubble discussion re-opening as I walked away from the table.

Six hours and ten minutes. 14th of 96 players. Top prize was scheduled for +2850% of buyin+addon+door.