Lock Poker $1,000 Guaranteed Deepstack NLHE (T5,000)
I haven’t been playing online except in spurts in recent months. Haven’t had great results overall, but I’ve been plugging away at a single buy-in level on Lock the past couple weeks. My last “big” win online was a couple years back at Full Tilt, when I came in second in a field of over 400 but today marked a relatively significant win. I apologize in advance for the length of this recap even without every hand; it’s a long way to the money.
Hand 1. 7
Blinds 10/20. Fold.
Hand 2. 7
Raise and two callers ahead of me. I fold.
Hand 3. 9
A significant hand. There are two limpers ahead of me and I call out of position. BB checks and four of us go to a flop of 7
Hand 4. 7
Twice in my first four hands? It’s OK, I’ve got twice the starting stack. One raise ahead of me and I fold.
Hand 5. 9
A raise from UTG. I fold.
Hand 6. 8
New table. I fold.
Hand 7. 3
UTG2 raises to 60, SB calls, and I’ve got chips, so I call. The flop is 5
Hand 8. 3
Raise and a call, and I fold.
Hand 9. 7
Third time in nine hands. I fold.
Hand 10. 8
OK. Seven-deuce three times and eight-three twice. In ten hands. Fold.
Hand 11. 3
Blinds to 15/30. Fold.
Hand 14. Q
Raise to 60 and three calls. Flop of 5
Hand 15. A
The tide of less-than-premium hands turns? I min-raise to A
Hand 16. 2
CO limps, SB raises after losing a big pot to me, and I fold.
Hand 17. 3
HJ limps again. BTN raises again. I fold, despite my penchant for the deuce-trey.
Hand 18. 8
HJ limps, CO raises (again). I fold.
Hand 19. 4
Blinds to 25/50. Fold.
Hand 20. K
UTG3 raises (again). I fold.
Hand 23. Q
I open to 125, three callers, blinds fold. Flop is Q
Hand 25. J
Two limps and I call out of position again. Flop’s 6
Hand 26. 8
Blinds to 30/60. Fold.
Hand 27. Q
Only seven players on the table at the moment. UTG1 raises to 210. I call and we’re HU to the 7
Hand 31. A
Back to nine players. I open to 200 and get called by UTG3 and CO. 7
Hand 34. A
UTG2 limps in and gets raised byHJ to 200. I call and both BB and UTG2 are in. I get top two on the 4
Hand 46. A
Blinds are 40/80. UTG1 opens to 180 and I call, with both the blinds following along. 7
Hand 54. K
Blinds are 50/100. I call a raise to 225 from UTG1. BB comes along. Catch middle pair on 8
Hand 59. 6
UTG2, HJ and CO limp in. I check. I get a gut-shot with 5
Hand 60. 7
Again. Fold. By this time, changes to the table have brought in a couple players with bigger stacks. BB on this hand has over 14,000 and there’s a stack of more than 18,500 on the other side. Even HJ had more than me, so I’m just table median.
Hand 63. T
Blinds 75/150/15. Open-raise to 500. Blinds fold.
Hand 66. 8
Open to 400. Called by HJ. Raised to 1,960 by CO. Blinds are out. HJ has only another 1,400, but an all-in loss to HJ would cut me below starting stack. I just call, rather than re-raising, which leaves me with 7,600. HJ is all-in for less. The flop isn’t good: T
Hand 85. T
Blinds are 125/250/25. I’ve blinded off 1,500 chips waiting for a playable hand. I limp in with The Butcher and to my surprise, find myself HU with BB. Flop’s 8
Hand 88. J
UTG1 open-raises to 675. I call and we’re HU. The flop makes me open-ended with 4
Hand 91. T
Action folds to me and I raise to 600 (10% of my chips). Jack-ten can’t always lose, right? I get one call, the flop is ugly for me: 2
Hand 95. Q
UTG raises to 600, action folds to me, and I call. 6
Hand 96. 7
At least it’s suited. Maybe it’s some sort of divine retribution for winning that hand. I’m going to check the deviation from norm of this when I get done.
Hand 99. T
Blinds are 150/300/30. UTG opens to 600 and I call, along with BB. BB’s big stack at the table with about twice the 9K the other two of us have. K
Hand 103. 8
HJ (big stack) opens to 600, BTN, SB, and I call. Flop is T
Hand 111. A
I open to 700 and get a call from BTN. BB re-raises to 1,945 with 6,300 behind. I call and have 8,300 left. BTN goes all-in for 2,566, which gets called by BB and myself. 8,100 in the pot pre-flop. The flop is 5
Hand 116. K
Blinds 200/400/40. New table. I do the classic limp, wait for BTN to go all-in for 6,840, watch the blinds fold, then call. He catches a pair for his T
Hand 117. Q
Min-raise to 800. A call from the only other stack with more than 20,000 at the table in SB. 6
Hand 118. 2
I’ve been discarding my small pairs as a matter of habit, and even though there was just a limp, min-raise, and call ahead of me in BB, I tossed these only to see a flop off 2
Hand 119. 8
Eights, on the other hand, are a different kettle of fish. UTG moved all-in for just 3,800 which, though small, was 20% of anyone else at the table’s stack. Action folded around to me and I called. BB folded and I was HU against 3
Hand 127. 9
Another middle pair fared poorly against the same player not long afterward. He was UTG1 and raised to 865. I called and was HU. We flopped T
Hand 135. 8
Blinds 250/500/50. I raised to 1,000 and everyone folded.
Hand 136. 9
Everyone folds to SB, who limps in. I check, the flop falls 7
Hand 138. Q
Big hand. HJ opens for 1,325, with 10,600 behind. I raise all-in for 17,262, more than either of the blinds behind me. HJ calls with A
Hand 141. 5
Seven-handed. The fives are still out of my preferred range, but I’m more than 10,000 chips ahead of anyone at the table. I raise to 1,000, get re-raised to 2,695 by CO (12,000 behind), then think better of it and fold when action gets back to me.
Hand 143. J
Eight-handed. I raise to 1,250. UTG1 shoves for 9,205. Without any more money in the pot, I fold.
Hand 144. A
HJ opens for 1,000 with 17,400 back. I just call. The flop is 3
Hand 148. 9
I open for 1,250 and take the blinds.
Hand 149. K
Open for 1,500. Everyone folds again.
Hand 157. T
Blinds at 300/600/60. Seven-handed. I open to 1,500 and BB calls. The flop isn’t particularly good: just 5
Hand 159. T
Open to 1,450. Apparently I’ve still got some cred, even without the table lead, because everyone folds.
Hand 160. 5
The player I just lost to bumps it up to 1,560, so naturally I call him with my fives (about which I already had something to say). This time, the flop falls 4
Hand 162. K
A player with twice my stack of 32,000 chips has been moved to my immediate left, which is just great, but this hand does help even things up a bit. UTG raises to 1,333, then UTG1 shoves for 15,300. Action folds to me. Aside from the big stack in SB, BB has 22,000 and UTG has about the same, but unless they’ve got aces or catch a card, I should be good. I shove to force them out and they fold. UTG1 has A
Hand 173. J
Blinds were 400/800/75. I opened for 1,750, My nemesis in SB shoved 11,314 and I brazenly called, only to be dominated by K
Hand 178. Q
Seven-handed, this was on the edge of my range. I raised to 1,700 and took the blinds.
Hand 180. K
I was the second limper into the pot, and we both saw the flop along with BB. 4
Hand 181. A
Blinds 500/1,000/100. Raised to 2,000, BB called. Flop was 9
Hand 192. Q
UTG2 (the nemesis) is all-in for 11,600. Things have leveled out over the past 30 hands, and while I’ve gained 10,000 chips, the big stack on my left if BTN has lost 20,000. Still, I’ve got him covered by only about 750. SB has half my stack of 41,200, and BB has 36,700. I just call. Then BB shoves. I could fold and maintain nearly 30,000, but I call with just 3,500 behind. UTG2 has A
Hand 200. 9
Blinds are 600/1,200/120. CO opens for 3,600 and I call. I get a beautiful 7
Hand 201. T
UTG1 is all-in for 9,900. I call and we’re HU. He has J
Hand 202. K
I open for 4,000 and take the blinds.
Hand 209. Q
UTG min-raises to 3,200 (76K behind), HJ calls (54K), and I call (76K). Flop T
Hand 210. A
I open to 4,000 and BB calls. I’ve got him out-chipped by about 17K. The flop is 8
Hand 211. Q
UTG1 opens to 3,200, I call, then HJ shoves for 29,800. Action folds around to me and I call against K
Hand 217. A
We’re eight-handed and I’m in late position, so I play a hand I might not normally go with and raise to 4,000. The short stack at the table in SB shoves for his remaining 15,500 and I’m the only caller. Up against A
Hand 222. T
Blinds are 800/1,600/150 and we’re seven-handed. Action folds to the SB, who flat-calls. I raise him to 5,000, he three-bets to 10,000, and I shove right into his K
Hand 223. Q
Six-handed. HJ (eventual tournament winner) raises to 4,000. I call. We see 9
Hand 229. J
Blinds 1,000/2,000/200. Five-handed. UTG limps in, I call, BB shoves for 31,400. UTG folds and I call with nearly 96,000 behind. He has A
Hand 230. J
UTG raises to 5,000 with a slightly larger stack than mine. I shove. Everyone folds. Now I’m the big stack again.
Hand 231. J
I open to 5,000. Everyone folds.
Hand 232. A
Raise to 6,000. Both blinds call. The flop is 3
Hand 237. T
Blinds 1,250/2,500/250. Back at a full table. Action folds to me, I shove and everyone folds, putting me back over 100,000, which isn’t so much any more.
Hand 246. T
We’ve lost a couple of players and I’ve blinded down to 98,000. I open-raise to 6,000. CO calls. The flop is 6
Hand 255. K
Blinds 1,500/3,000/300. Seven at the table. The hand that put me into the top five for the end of the tournament. I min-raise to 6,000. UTG1 calls. Everyone else folds. The flop is J
Hand 264. 8
Five-handed. BTN raises to 9,000. I shove for just under what he has in his stack. Everyone folds.
Hand 266. J
I raise to 10,000. Everyone folds.
Hand 271. 7
Yes, this hand burned me just half-an-hour before, but I open to 7,500 and take the blinds.
Hand 276. A
These regular CO raises are going to get some push-back one of these days. Raise to 9,000. Take the blinds.
Hand 280. 9
Blinds 2,000/4,000/400. Down to four. Raise to 9,000, take the blinds.
Hand 281. J
Raise to 9,000. BTN calls. SB re-raises to 34,000 with 125,000 behind. BB folds. Smart move here would be to fold and preserve my 175,000 behind, which would still leave me in third and just a few thousand behind second, but I shove, BTN folds, and SB calls with Q
Hand 282. 7
You’ve got to be kidding.
Hand 286. 9
Only 4bb left. BTN raises to 8,000, SB raises to 22,400, and I’m all-in for 15,938. BTN calls and they check it down. A
VPIP for this tournament: 22.30%. I had combinations of seven-deuce (suited and unsuited) eight times: 2.8% of my hands. Standard distribution is 0.6% so that’s more than four times as frequently as average. It was the hand I had more often than any other. Then again, I had kings three times, and that’s twice as often as average (plus, they all held up). Went to the flop more than 17% of the time and earned chips almost half the time I saw the flop. Went to showdown about half the time I saw the flop and earned chips more than half the time I showed down.
A look at the online stats for the top two finishers revealed some interesting comparisons. The second-place finisher has a truly remarkable ITM of nearly 52% over more than 270 games, while the winner has a still-respectable 23% (on 500 games). The winner is far more profitable, however, with an average profit of nearly +90% versus the runner-up’s +23% ROI. Even though the winner only makes it to the money half as often as the runner-up, it looks like he cashes for eight times as much on average: +395% on each cash versus +45%.
Four-and-a-half hours, 286 hands. 4th of 152 entries. +1,144% ROI (first paid +3,180%).