My Own Worst Enemy

Lock Poker $750 Guarantee Deepstack Turbo (T5,000)

I can really screw things up for myself. I hadn’t played much online lately, but dropped some money into the Lock box and played a couple of games, including this one where I totally screw myself at the end. Follow along and see!

Hand 1. [as 7s] UTG2
I open-raise from 10/20 to 65, getting calls from HJ and CO. The flop is an unsatisfactory [8h th qh] and I c-bet 125. Both call. [9d] on the turn gives me the bottom end of an up-and-down straight draw, but any jack’s already there and there’s still the possibility of a four-flush, so I check. HJ shoves and takes the pot of 600.

Hand 2. [3d kh] HJ (table refactor)
Fold.

Hand 3. [8s 5c] UTG3
Folded. Blinds 15/30.

Hand 4. [kd kh] UTG2
Open-raise 75; CO calls. [6d 2h ks] flop, check-check. Turn is [9h], I bet 100 and get a call. [7d] on the river, I bet 300, CO folds.

Hand 5. [8h 4h] UTG1
Fold.

Hand 6. [qs 4d] HJ (table refactor)
Fold.

Hand 7. [ts 4c] UTG3
Fold.

Hand 8. [2h 4d] UTG2
Fold. Blinds 25/50.

Hand 9. [6d 6c] UTG1
Lower than my preferred range for 9-handed. Fold. As it ended up, two players hit two pair: jacks and queens beating jacks and nines on the river.

Hand 10. [8h 9s] UTG
Fold.

Hand 11. [6h 4d] BB
Fold to SB raise of 300. Blinds 50/100.

Hand 12. [th js] SB
UTG and UTG1 limp in, I raise to 275. BB folds, UTG and UTG1 call. Flop is [qs 6s qd]. I check, UTG bets 400, UTG1 raises to 800, and I get out of the way. UTG re-raises to 1,600 and takes the pot.

Hand 13. [9d td] BTN
UTG1 min-raises to 200, CO min-raises to 300, and I call. BB and UTG1 call. Flop is [7d jh ah] giving me a gut-shot straight.BB and UTUG1 check to CO who bets 100 into a pot of 1,250.  I’m more than willing to call that; UTG1 comes along. [8h] makes my straight but puts a potential flush out. Action checks to me and I bet about a third of the 1,550 pot. UTG1 folds but CO calls. [4s] on the river doesn’t change a thing. I’m either still good or I’m beat. CO checks and I check. He has a busted higher straight with [qs kd]. I’m up to 6,305.

Hand 14. [3d 4d] CO
Fold.

Hand 15. [as 4d] HJ
Fold. Blinds at 75/150.

Hand 16. [ks 8c] HJ (dead button)
Fold.

Hand 17. [8s 9c] UTG2
Fold.

Hand 18. [qd 2h] UTG1
Fold.

Hand 19. [9c 4h] UTG
Fold.

Hand 20. [as ks] BB
UTG1 calls and everyone else folds. I raise to 450; UTG1 calls. The flop is [ac 2s js], I’ve got top pair and top kicker, with nut flush draw. I check to see what he’s going to do, and he puts in 450, about half the pot. I pot it to 1,500 and he calls. Regardless, I’m feeling pretty confident. [kc] makes me top two pair. I’ve still got my flush draw, but a different flush is possible. Only a slim chance he’s got two clubs, but it could work to my advantage. We’re roughly even in chips: I’ve got a couple hundred more than him, but we both have more than 27bb behind, with nearly the same in the pot. I raise all-in and he calls with [9c jc]. The river is [qd] and my two pair holds, putting me up to T12,435  and vaulting me into the top ranks in the tournament twenty minutes in.

Hand 21. [7h 4d] UTG4
Folded.

Hand 22. [qh 7c] UTG3
Folded. Blinds at 100/200.

Hand 23. [4s 2h] UTG1
Fold.

Hand 24. [3s js] UTG
Fold.

Hand 25. [5c 7d] BB
I get a walk.

Hand 26. [3h 2s] SB
Fold.

Hand 27. [ah 6c] BTN
Blinds are 125/250/20. UTG2—with 30K the only other player at the table with more than 7,000 chips—limps and I fold.

Hand 28. [3h 5c] CO
Fold.

Hand 27. [ac jd] UTG1 (moved to new table)
I’m the biggest stack at the new table, with about 2.5K more than anyone else. I’m in seat 9, there are three stacks between 9K and 10K in seats 4, 6, and 8, a 6K stack in seat 3, and the other have less than 5K. UTG opens with a min-raise to 500 and I announce my presence at the new digs with a three-bet to 1,250. Everyone folds but UTG, he calls. The flop is [2s 9s ad] and he checks. I check behind. [jh] on the river makes me very happy. UTG checks. THere’s 3K in the pot, I bet just another 1,250 and he folds.

Hand 28. [ah 7d] UTG
Fold.

Hand 29. [ad tc] BB
Blinds are 150/300/30. UTG raises to 600, BTN goes all-in for 3,220, and I fold. UTG calls with [kh ac] v. BTN’s [6h th] and two kings on the board make his set. He’s not the big dog on the table with 22K.

Hand 30. [8s 9c] SB
Fold.

Hand 31. [qs th] BTN
Everyone ahead of me folds and I raise to 700. SB folds, BB shoves for 2,775. I call against 4s 3h] and he makes a pair of treys on the turn.

Hand 32. [7c 6s] CO
Fold.

Hand 33. [3c 4d] HJ
Fold.

Hand 34. [8d kh] UTG3
Fold.

Hand 35. [qs 7d] UTG1
Blinds at 200/400/40. Fold.

Hand 36. [4d qd] UTG
Fold.

Hand 37. [jc 4d] BB
Folded to 6,650 all-in from SB.

Hand 38. [8d kd] SB
UTG min-raises to 800, which I would have called, but BTN goes all-in (second hand in a row) for 7,330. I fold and  UTG calls, with 8,343 behind. It’s HU with [kh kc] (BTN) against [th ts] (UTG). The board rolls out [qd jc js 7d jh] and the kings double up.

Hand 39. [3d kc] BTN
Fold. I drop below T10,000.

Hand 40. [5c 4d] CO
Fold.

Hand 41. [tc 7h] HJ
Fold.

Hand 42. [kh 9d] UTG1 (7-handed due to table balancing)
Blinds are 250/500/50. UTG, with the largest stack at the table (18K), min-raises to 1,000, I fold, BB calls. They raise after the [5h 3h 3c] flop, with BB at risk with [js ad] against UTG’s [6c 6d]. A [jd] hits on the river, doubling BB.

Hand 43. [kd 4h] UTG
Fold.

Hand 44. [th 9h] BB
UTG is all-in for just 1,202 but nobody else calls. When he opens up, he has [3s js]. He’s lucky with the [4d 3c 4h] flop; the [6h] turn gives me a few more outs, but I make one of my pairs with [9s] on the river and knock him out.

Hand 45. [8s 9c] SB
Fold.

Hand 46. [th jc] BTN
No SB, since the player was knocked out the hand before. CO raises to 1,050 and I call, BB comes along. CO’s smaller than me by 1,500, BB has a 5,000 chip advantage. THe flop is [7s 7d 9h], making me a gut-shot straight draw, but I fold to a bet of 1,750 from CO.

Hand 47. [2d 4h] CO
Blinds are 300/600/60. Fold.

Hand 48. [7s 2s] HJ
Fold.

Hand 49. [2s qs] UTG2
Fold.

Hand 50. [tc td] UTG1
I raise to 2,000 and everyone folds.

Hand 51. [2s qc] UTG
Fold.

Hand 52. [4h jc] BB
Fold to a min-raise and call.

Hand 53. [4c ts] SB
Blinds are 400/800/75. Fold.

Hand 54. [9s ts] BTN
UTG min-raises and I call the 1,600. Both blinds come along. The flop is [6h 8c 4h] and I’ve got another gut-shot straight draw. UTG (the tournament leader with 40K) bets 1,875 into the pot of 7,000 and I bail along with everyone else.

Hand 55. [2h qd] CO
Fold.

Hand 56. [7c 8d] HJ
Fold.

Hand 57. [th 3s] UTG3
Fold.

Hand 58. [kc 5s] UTG2
Fold.

Hand 59. [qh 7h] UTG1
Blinds are 500/1,000/100. I open with a min-raise to 2,000 and everyone folds.

Hand 60. [8h ac] UTG
Fold.

Hand 61. [5h 7s] BB
BTN opens with a min-raise from a stack of 24K and I fold my big blind, leaving me just 9,275.

Hand 62. [kh ah] SB
The hand I’ve been waiting for. Action folds around to BTN (with 15.25K), who shoves. I’m behind and at rise, but go all-in to call. BB (with a stack smaller than mine) folds. BTN shows [jc jd].  The flop is good to me: [qh 2h ac]. Top pair and top kicker with a flush draw, leaving the jacks drawing very thin. An [8h] on the turn seals the deal, and I’m over T20,000.

Hand 63. [3c 5c] BTN
Fold.

Hand 64. [kh 9h] CO
Hearts again. The big blind has a third of his chips in the pot already. Action folds around to HJ, the player I beat with jacks two hands earlier. He raises to 3,000, leaving less than that behind. I call, BTN and SB fold, then BB goes all-in for just another 50 chips. Both HJ and I call. The flop is [7d 5c kc]. I only have naked kings, but when HJ pushes his last chips in the pot to make it a total of 13.25K, the pot odds of calling another 2,800 are too good. He has just [ad 5h]; BB has [as 2s]. I’m the heavy favorite. Nothing happens to change that by the river, both players are eliminated, and I’m over T30,000 and second in chips at the table.

Hand 65. [4s qc] UTG2
Blinds are now 600/1,200/120. Fold.

Hand 66. [2c td] UTG1
Fold.

Hand 67. [8c 5d] UTG
Fold.

Hand 68. [js jh] BB
Action folded all the way to SB, who tried to steal my big blind and ante with a raise to 2,400. We were relatively evenly-matched in chips, with me about 3K ahead. I re-raised him to 5,000 and he called. There was almost 11K in the pot with a flop of [7c 5d kd]. We both checked. [9c] on the turn. So many possibilities for jacks to go wrong. He bet 7,300 and I called. A [7s] on the turn and he shoved the last 14.6K of his stack in the middle. I wasn’t buying that he had a seven, and I was pretty certain he though I’d missed the board, which was essentially true. I called and he showed [2d as] for a pure bluff. Now I was on top of the leader board, with 57.5K.

I’d figured out that with 15 places paying, at T5,000 and 131 entries, the chip average at the time we hit the money bubble was going to be 43.7K. All I needed to do was maintain, stay around that number, and I was going to be make it into the cash. We wstill had a way to go, with about 40 players left, but I had almost 9% of the chips in play. Blinds were moving up fairly aggressively, however, so I wouldn’t be able to just glide.

Hand 69. [7c 5d] SB
Fold.

Hand 70. [ks kh] BTN
Where else do you want this hand? Big blind? Could I not play it just so there was no chance of losing chips? HJ went all-in with a raise of more than 10x: 13,015, about 23% f my stack. I was an overwhelming favorite against all but one card combination. I re-raised all-in over the top; the blinds had less than 2,000 between them. BB pushed in the last 345 in a desperation move and turned over [4d 7c]. HJ had [ts td]. Naturally, the flop was [4s 2c th] and the entire 29K pot went to HJ. But hey, I still had almost exactly the average I’d figured for the bubble.

Hand 71. [kh 7d] CO
This got folded.

Hand 72. [jc td] BTN
Only one other stack at the table had me out-chipped and that was by less than 1K. Everyone left was fairly healthy, however, with between 19K and 33.5K. The big stack was in SB. A low-20s stack in UTG1 min-plus-raised to 2,555 and I called. SB three-bet to 5,995. UTG1 folded, but I called to see a flop of [7c tc ad]. Both of us checked to see a [6c] on the turn. SB bet 2,400 and I called, hoping for another ten or club. What I got was a [6s], however. SB bet 3,600 and I paid him off, to see [kh kd]. Now I was down to 31.5K, but I could thank the ace on the flop that I wasn’t worse off.

Hand 73. [js 9d] CO
Fold.

Hand 74. [kd jc] HJ
Tangled again with the big stack. I opened to 4,000, big stack CO three-bet to 9,995, and BTN went all-in for 2,766. I called the three-bet, then we saw a flop of [4d 9s 3c]. CO bet 7,075 and I folded. It was [qh qc] against [3s 5s] and the pocket pair held. Now I was down to just 21K.

Hand 75. [8h 8c] UTG1
We picked up a couple of new players—with roughly the same stack as I had—between me and the big stack (now 76.5K). I raised with my eights to 4,000 and was re-raised all-in. I sort of felt I was beat when it came my turn to call, and boy was I ever right: [kd kc]. I was behind and out chipped. [ks] on the turn sealed my fate and I was busted from the tournament in 26th place, 11 places short of the money.

VPIP for the session was 25%. Six pairs in the hole. I won eleven hands, including six showdowns.

Seventy-five minutes, 75 hands. 26th of 131 players.

Home, Again


I wasn’t sure how I was going to make my return to Portland poker after my unproductive stint in Las Vegas. I thought about the Thursday night game at the Encore Club, but skipped it, then was too busy early Saturday evening to make starting time for the weekly $10K there. By the time I was free, the first break would have already begun, and there was no way I could make it across town. So the 9pm $200 Freeroll at Portland Players Club it was.

Except that when I got there the door was locked and there was a sign saying they were closed for the evening. Yikes! I was on the loose, Encore wouldn’t have a game open for an hour, I was probably too late to make the 8pm at Aces. It just left the dreaded Final Table. So I high-tailed it out Glisan.

The Final Table $400 Guarantee NLHE (T4,000)

I got to Final Table just as Level 1 was ending and took a seat at the empty second table. I had to wait a couple of minutes for the first table to be split, and were started off five-handed.

Took the first hand I played (at 50/100), from SB with [ax tx]. There were three players to the flop, the highest card on the board by the turn was a 9, and I bet 100 to win the poison pot, so you know where this story’s going.

Fifteen minutes into my game, I got [ax jx] on BTN and open-raised to 300, getting called by SB. BB went all-in for 3,000. I had him covered by 75 and went all-in, and SB came along. They flipped over [kx qx] (SB) and [ax tx] (BB). I had the best hand, but I was statistically a hair behind the [kx qx]. The flop put out a wheel draw of [2x 3x 5x] , but the turn was a king, sending my hopes into a tailspin. The river brought relief with a [4x], though, and BB and I chopped up the pot, with me getting an extra 75 for my trouble.

Five minutes later, on BB with [ax jx] and I called 550 from UTG1 (same guy who’d been BB in the split). UTG (who’d had the money in the pot when we chopped it) came along again. The flop was [2x 3x 4x] and I mischievously shoved to open. UTG1 called with [ax qx] but the board double-paired and we split the pot again.

Ten minutes later, I wasn’t so lucky. I was all-in UTG1 with [ax jx] after losing a hand and the same player I’d been tangling with called with [kx jx] He pulled out a straight on the river and I broke the No Re-buy Rule.

I stopped keeping notes after that, wondering if I’d do any better paying more overt attention to what was going on, but it didn’t help. By the break I was down to a half starting stack again, and I lost most of my add-on in a single hand, so I was riding the short stack through to the final table (I did manage to outlast the guy I’d been tangling with).

Made a couple of crucial double-ups, but I was still under T10,000 after nearly three hours of play, with blinds at 1,500/3,000/300. I shoved UTG with [ah qh] and got a quick call from UTG1, who’d been steadily accumulating chips all evening with sometimes marginal (but lucrative) calls. Her [kx tx] did it again, making Broadway and putting me out of the first tournament I’d played in ten days.

Two hours and twenty minutes (late arrival). Eighth of 21 players.

Final Table NLHE Shootout

I’m not normally a shootout player, but I was roped into this one and since I’d been knocked out of the tournament twice by hands that I had beat by 3:1 or 2:1, I viewed it as an opportunity to use up some more of that great luck. I never managed to get ahead far in the game, but I ended up just a few dollars down, and managed to qualify for the high hand bonus for the evening when my pocket tens matched up with a rivered ten to make the best full house possible on the board. So, up a little for the evening because of a fluke.

QuickDraw

Aces Players Club $10K Guarantee (10,000 chips)

Got into in from late position with [kx qx] on a [jx tx 7x] flop. Pre-flop there are three of us in for 625 each. Post-flop, SB leads out with a bet of 1,400, gets a call, and I re-raise to 3,400 with the open-ended straight draw. SB pushes all-in for less than I have left, seat nine goes all-in with enough to cover me, and I call. It’s my draw against two sets: SB has [jx jx], the other caller has [tx tx]. I’m actually in better shape to win it all than the tens (it’s 27%/69%/4%, but no ace or nine shows, the jacks triple up, and the tens take the rest of my chips. At least I saved myself the cost of an add-on tonight.

Fifty-five minutes. -100% ROI. 59th of 61 players.

Only 17 winning days before EPT Prague.