wsop me hand for review + tourney report (long)

[Che]

(Haven’t read any replies yet. I’ll get to that in a minute.)

I eventually let my brain overrule my reads (reasonable, I guess, given my lack of experience with live reads) and folded. I decided that 21K was too much to risk given my solid image, and raising to 12K and then folding didn’t seem right.

BB thought for a while and called. Turn was a K. BB checked, UTG bet 5000 or something and BB folded unhappily. UTG was clearly relieved.

I had to do something to keep from crying so I turned to the player to my right and told him I would have won the hand if I had stayed in. “You have AK?” “Yup.”

After the day was over, I asked UTG what he had and he said that he and BB had discussed the hand already. Said he had AK and BB folded QQ. I believe UTG had AK, and I believe BB *said* he had QQ, but I doubt he did. However, I saw people playing QQ/JJ rather soft so maybe he did. Who knows?

Anyway, I told UTG I could tell he was relieved when BB folded. He said he knew he had the hand won when BB checked the turn, but he was still stressed because he knew he would have to fold the flop if BB had reraised him. I congratulated him for folding out my AK as that hand was basically the difference between the two of us – I ended the day with 13.7K and he was over 40K. The two of us and the guy to my immediate left (also with 40K+) were the only 3 to survive the entire day at our table.

I’m very upset with myself for not following through on my read. I’ve said it before on these boards: making superior reads is worthless if you don’t follow through – you’re no better than an average player. I would have quickly pushed this in an online $215 or the Party Million, but this was “the WSOP” and I wimped out under the pressure. [img]/images/graemlins/frown.gif[/img]

I guess I shouldn’t be too upset since I’m probably being results-oriented to an extent (not to mention that I was dead money anyway [img]/images/graemlins/crazy.gif[/img]) – I would be patting myself on the back for talking myself out of bluffing if they had both gotten all-in with AA and TTT or something.

Anyway, I ended the day at 13.7K because my cards stayed very cold other than one KK hand that took down a pot of around 2100 when I rereraised an aggressive LP reraiser and everyone folded. I had big stacks on my immediate left and immediate right so I didn’t get many chances to raise first in – unless I was in the SB and the BB had accumulated a big stack by busting the guy who was the best player at the table before the dinner break (he came back from the break drunk and just wasn’t the same) and he made it clear that I would be playing for my whole stack if I raised him from the SB. I got a steady diet of 95o in the SB so I never got a chance to tangle with him with an above average hand.

I did manage to confuse him by open-completing my SB once and he didn’t repop me. I flopped a pair +oesd with my 65o and led at the pot. He called. I hit my one-card straight on the turn and led again and he made it 10K, which basically put me in. I pushed and he called. Unfortunately, he also had a 5 for the one-card straight plus he had a T for 4 outs to a bigger straight. River blanked and I survived, but I had to listen to a rather lengthy lecture about how I must be crazy to come this far and then risk my tournament on 65o. UTG from “the hand” defended me, but SB wouldn’t hear it. I just chuckled to myself – it was quite a show.

(BTW fourth and final showdown of the day: 1 win, 2 losses, 1 chop.)

And I knew it was a show as this guy was total Jeckyl and Hyde. He had been very quiet before lunch while he was short-stacked, but after he doubled up and then eliminated the drunk guy on two big hands he got really belligerent and started lecturing the table non-stop. Definitely worth the price of admission. LOL

Then, while we’re bagging our chips at the end of the day, he comes over and basically says ‘no hard feelings, just part of the game.’ And again the next morning when I run into him on the way to my table, he does everything but apologize for his behavior and wishes me good luck. It’s not my personality to do that stuff, but I thought he did a good job of it and I respect that.

Day 2 was rather anticlimactic. I stole a few blinds and made one reraise all-in to tread water as we finished up level 8 and then busted on the third hand after break when AJ hit an A on the flop against my KK, and I called his push (I was so short that I was getting 2:1 to call against a bully with a monster stack – over 100K, I think). I guess I should have made my second big laydown, but I didn’t.

All in all, I thought my play was decent. I played to level 9 of the WSOP ME without ever flopping a hand that could beat AA. I was fortunate to turn/river a big hand the two times that I did play on past the flop plus I was fortunate to have lots of big starting hands in the first 3 levels and that was enough to carry me for a while, but I wasn’t as aggressive as I should have been and that eventually caught up with me.

Lessons learned:

1. You can win a TON of chips in this event without ever risking much if you consistently watch for opportunities to bully the many weak players in the early rounds (assuming you don’t have a couple of pros at your table or something).
2. When you make a read but don’t have the guts to act on it, you’re a chump. I think this is a significant difference between my play and the play of a pro in this event.
3. I have a lot to learn about live poker, but I’m going to enjoy the learning. [img]/images/graemlins/grin.gif[/img]

Hope this is helpful to someone. Thanks for listening.

Che