Brad F.
04-11-2005, 04:45 PM
After taking about a month hiatus from poker to focus on school and work and such, I wanted to get my feet wet again after profiting 100 bucks on Stars my last go around. In my life I've probably came out about even in poker, never really breaking ground because I've had such a Jekyl and Hyde type playing. Sometimes I play great, make reads, play tight, et cetera, and others I want EVERY pot and bluff too much and lose. And with the fact that I'm married and a student and having lots of bills to pay, poker money was hard to come by.
So after writing some of my past experiences and studying some, I want to just dabble again and deposited 25 dollars on Absolute Saturday night. I decided to play a 5 dollar limit hold-em tourney and a .25 NL game (I'm not really trying to build a bankroll per se, so these obviously aren't good ideas if trying to build one from 25 bucks).
Anyway, playing tight, good analytical poker, I take 3rd place out of 60 in the limit hold em tourney, lost about 6 bucks at NLHE, and I'm up to 55 bucks. Pretty cool I guess in one night, I went to bed thinking about poker and specific hands.
It snowed a lot in Colorado on Sunday, so I got the day off of work (restaurant). My wife went to work at 9:30, and I get online and see a 2k guaranteed tourney on at 10:00. Feeling good from my experience last night, and looking like there would be an overlay, I dish out 22 bucks to play in the tourney (again, not recommended, but I was in an analytical poker mode, and wasn't really needing or wanting to per se build a roll).
It ended up having no overlay, with 115 entrants, gnerating a prize pool of around 2400. Early on I get lucky going all-in with A-Q on a J-10-5 board and J-10 calls. King hits the river. After that poorly played hand, which got me up to 3000 in chips early on, I thought "Brad, you got these chips, now use them."
From there I played the best poker of my life. I played tight with raises in front of me, but open raised a decent amount if position called for it. I pulled up eMarkM's famous post on how to win tourneys, and read it as I was playing. I not once was all-in before the river, and the only time I was AI there was when a guy bet into my nut flush.
Once the antes started, I'd raise with Q-9, Q-10, K-8, K-9, K-10, K-J in Midde to late position. I NOT ONCE, I kid you not, got reraised. I got called, but almost every time I'd bet into the guy that called and he'd fold, regardless of the flop or how it hit my hand. I kept telling myself "Be careful with these raises, but I never once got challenged.
So i really smoothly got to the final table, only the second NLHE final table ever. Top prize was 680, 2nd 450, 3rd 260, 4-6 were all in teh 100-220 range, and 7-9 were all under 100. I went to the final table 5th in chips out of 9.
Anyway, this is the hand, I've never EVER had the pressure in front of me that I did on this hand. I wanted the big money here (ooh, 680 dollars, I know :-). I knew that if I kept playing according to eMarkM and to my tight-aggressive style, I could come out victorious.
After we got down to eight, this hand came up:
Hero in CO with Q /images/graemlins/diamond.gif10 /images/graemlins/diamond.gif. Blinds 800-1600 with 100 ante. 4 folds to me, I raise to 3200. Looking at my hand history I was shocked I only min-raised, as that's a silly silly thing to do at most any point, especially with 800 already in the middle. My normal raise was 2.5-3.5x the BB. Maybe I was mixing up my game, I'm not sure.
Not surprisingly, both the SB and the BB call my raise. Notes on both players: SB has reraised a MP1 raise in the CO with A-J suited, and has slowplayed trips. BB only open-limps, I played with him all tourney long, no open-raises, but calls raises with a wide variety of holdings.
Chip count: Brad-30400, SB-24420.50, BB-5065 (another reason not to min-raise, but he never reraised.)
Flop: 10 /images/graemlins/club.gif 9 /images/graemlins/diamond.gif 6 /images/graemlins/heart.gif
SB goes all in (21120), BB folds. Wow. I hadn't used my extra time yet, and this seriously was the first time I'd been in a tough situation. So I had time to think about it.
I think SB would reraise with JJ-AA this late in tourney. I wouldn't put 10-9 out of the picture or a set in that range, but I think he'd slowplay a set or maybe even two pair. I hadn't seen him make a move like this all tourney long. What hands do you put him on here and what play do you make?
I will end my story after some thoughts. Thanks for reading along.
Brad
So after writing some of my past experiences and studying some, I want to just dabble again and deposited 25 dollars on Absolute Saturday night. I decided to play a 5 dollar limit hold-em tourney and a .25 NL game (I'm not really trying to build a bankroll per se, so these obviously aren't good ideas if trying to build one from 25 bucks).
Anyway, playing tight, good analytical poker, I take 3rd place out of 60 in the limit hold em tourney, lost about 6 bucks at NLHE, and I'm up to 55 bucks. Pretty cool I guess in one night, I went to bed thinking about poker and specific hands.
It snowed a lot in Colorado on Sunday, so I got the day off of work (restaurant). My wife went to work at 9:30, and I get online and see a 2k guaranteed tourney on at 10:00. Feeling good from my experience last night, and looking like there would be an overlay, I dish out 22 bucks to play in the tourney (again, not recommended, but I was in an analytical poker mode, and wasn't really needing or wanting to per se build a roll).
It ended up having no overlay, with 115 entrants, gnerating a prize pool of around 2400. Early on I get lucky going all-in with A-Q on a J-10-5 board and J-10 calls. King hits the river. After that poorly played hand, which got me up to 3000 in chips early on, I thought "Brad, you got these chips, now use them."
From there I played the best poker of my life. I played tight with raises in front of me, but open raised a decent amount if position called for it. I pulled up eMarkM's famous post on how to win tourneys, and read it as I was playing. I not once was all-in before the river, and the only time I was AI there was when a guy bet into my nut flush.
Once the antes started, I'd raise with Q-9, Q-10, K-8, K-9, K-10, K-J in Midde to late position. I NOT ONCE, I kid you not, got reraised. I got called, but almost every time I'd bet into the guy that called and he'd fold, regardless of the flop or how it hit my hand. I kept telling myself "Be careful with these raises, but I never once got challenged.
So i really smoothly got to the final table, only the second NLHE final table ever. Top prize was 680, 2nd 450, 3rd 260, 4-6 were all in teh 100-220 range, and 7-9 were all under 100. I went to the final table 5th in chips out of 9.
Anyway, this is the hand, I've never EVER had the pressure in front of me that I did on this hand. I wanted the big money here (ooh, 680 dollars, I know :-). I knew that if I kept playing according to eMarkM and to my tight-aggressive style, I could come out victorious.
After we got down to eight, this hand came up:
Hero in CO with Q /images/graemlins/diamond.gif10 /images/graemlins/diamond.gif. Blinds 800-1600 with 100 ante. 4 folds to me, I raise to 3200. Looking at my hand history I was shocked I only min-raised, as that's a silly silly thing to do at most any point, especially with 800 already in the middle. My normal raise was 2.5-3.5x the BB. Maybe I was mixing up my game, I'm not sure.
Not surprisingly, both the SB and the BB call my raise. Notes on both players: SB has reraised a MP1 raise in the CO with A-J suited, and has slowplayed trips. BB only open-limps, I played with him all tourney long, no open-raises, but calls raises with a wide variety of holdings.
Chip count: Brad-30400, SB-24420.50, BB-5065 (another reason not to min-raise, but he never reraised.)
Flop: 10 /images/graemlins/club.gif 9 /images/graemlins/diamond.gif 6 /images/graemlins/heart.gif
SB goes all in (21120), BB folds. Wow. I hadn't used my extra time yet, and this seriously was the first time I'd been in a tough situation. So I had time to think about it.
I think SB would reraise with JJ-AA this late in tourney. I wouldn't put 10-9 out of the picture or a set in that range, but I think he'd slowplay a set or maybe even two pair. I hadn't seen him make a move like this all tourney long. What hands do you put him on here and what play do you make?
I will end my story after some thoughts. Thanks for reading along.
Brad