*Official* Foxwoods New England Poker Classic Thread

[markbos]

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I end the evening by playing a one-table $500 game (called this because they used to pay the winner $100 cash and 500 in foxwoods lammers). Anyway, things have changed, you pay 75 bucks and up against 10 players if you take first place you get 600 bucks cash. I figure this will be good practice for Mondays event.

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Interesting... so the satellites are now basically "winner take all" single table cash tournaments. I played in one of these before the WPT Championship last year and when it got down to 2, we agreed to a split where I took the lammers and gave the other guy the cash, plus a little more (I was chip leader at the time). I then proceeded to bust out of the actual tournament 5 minutes before the first break, going all-in short-stacked from the SB with 77 against a guy who had limped from the CO with AK and hit his A on the river. But that's another story...

Did you get a feel whether word was getting out upstairs that single table cash tourneys were being played, possibly bringing in some of the fish who wouldn't be interested if tournament lammers were involved? I was going to drive out Friday morning for the weekend, hoping to win a satellite to get lammers for Sunday and/or Monday, but if it's lucrative enough, I might drive down Thursday afternoon instead, hoping to get in a couple of additional STTs on Thursday evening.

- Mark

[Toro]

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Did you get a feel whether word was getting out upstairs that single table cash tourneys were being played, possibly bringing in some of the fish who wouldn't be interested if tournament lammers were involved? I was going to drive out Friday morning for the weekend, hoping to win a satellite to get lammers for Sunday and/or Monday, but if it's lucrative enough, I might drive down Thursday afternoon instead, hoping to get in a couple of additional STTs on Thursday evening.

- Mark

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I observed the opposite. Some of the better players were lining up to play these for the cash. So you're going to encounter maybe 2 or 3 pretty good players per table in these one table satellites.

[markbos]

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I observed the opposite. Some of the better players were lining up to play these for the cash. So you're going to encounter maybe 2 or 3 pretty good players per table in these one table satellites.

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Hmm... I'll go ahead stick to my Friday plan then. I'll probably still play a couple of these anyway, but it doesn't sound like they're as fishy as the Act tourneys are. Thanks for the info.

- Mark

[Mountainhawk]

Saturday:

Got to Foxwoods about 9:30 AM. Put myself on the 4/8, 2/4 Omaha H/L and the 1/2 NL ($100 buyin) list. By about 10:45, I got a 4/8 seat as the new dealer shift rolled in and they started opening up more tables.

The table I sat at was crazy. It was fun, but you could do nothing to protect any hand. Preflop was raised 90% of the time, 3-bet 50% and capped probably 25-30%. We saw 5 quads and 3 straight flushes at my table (I was involved in none of the hands). The craziest hand went like this:

6 people see the flop, which, as usual, was 3 bet (I was not one of them, despite being SB.) Flop comes down 8 Q T . Crazy Asian guy bets , 2 folds and 2 calls, and the other main player in the hand raises, Crazy Asian 3 bets, other two folds, Other Guy 4 bets, CA just calls. The pot is now at 17.5 BB (if I did the math right). Turn Q . Betting goes to 4 bets again. 25.5 BB (25 BB after the rake). River 8 . Betting goes to about 8 bets on the river, when other guy runs out of chips. When he goes allin, CA calls and quickly turns over his quad Queens. Other guy looks stunned for a second, then turns over 9 J For the straight flush to the queen.

I didn't really have many memorable type hands. I won with Aces full against someone who thought a 7 high flush was good on a paired board (AKKxx) AND 4 of a suit on there. But it was a extremely high variance table, and I ended up down exactly $3 for an 11 hour session after watching my buyin dwindle from $300 to $80, rebuild to $500, only to have Aces and Kings get sucked out by 24o and 35o. It was fun, but frustrating at the end of the day knowing if two or three river cards were different, I was up $150-$250 instead of basically even.

Sunday:

Got to Foxwoods about 10AM from my hotel down the road. Sat down at 1/2 NL, which is a $100 max buyin. They take time of $5 per 30 minutes from every player, which probably makes the game very tough to beat long term. That's $100 coming off the table every hour.

Anyway, my first foray into live ring NL didn't go so well. 4 big hands, four times all my money goes bye-bye.

KK runs into AA. So I rebuy. I build to about $140, and get AK. A player before me raised to $15, folds to me I made it $50 to go, everyone else folds and original raiser calls. Flop AK7. He checks. I'm all in. Called by 77. Time to rebuy. Nothing for a long time, down to about $75, and I get KJo but get to see the flop free from the BB. KJQ. One person bets $25, folds to me, I'm all in. Folds to original raiser, who calls with KQ ... poof goes the Hawk's money again. Final rebuy ... I've built to about $120 by stealing/winning w/o showdown a couple of times. I get AJs. Called a preflop raise of $15 (ok, this was probably a little loose) and we are heads up. Flop came 65x, 2 of my suit. Check, check. The turn brings the 6 of my suit. He checks, I bet $20, he calls. River a blank. Check, I'm all in, and called by 55. Stupid 55.

So anyway, 4.5 hours of NL, -$400. Ouch.

I reload for another $200, and head to the 4/8 tables again. I know this game is beatable, so I see if I can rebuild my stack some. Again the table was insane, and in fact, crazy asian guy was at the table again. He was still muttering about quad Queens being no good.

We actually had a hand that was a family pot that was also CAPPED preflop. I was in SB, and by the time if go around to me, it was $6 to call, and there was already $50 in the pot, so I called with my 25o. By the time it got around to me again, there was $130 or so in the pot with 8 to call, so I pretty much had to call again. I actually flopped middle pair, but there was straight and flush draws on the board, and betting was capped on the flop too, so I had to bail out of it. The pot ended up going to a guy that hit the straight, and it must have been a $350 pot. Craziness.

I admit I was way too loose on this table, but I got frustrated after 2 days of seeing 24s run down Aces. It worked for me, on consectutive hands I ran down AA with 78s and AQ with 26o when the duece gave me two pair on the river.

All in all, it ended up being a good night for me in limit. I was up $117 for the night, up $114 at 4/8 overall to go with the -$400 I put up for NL, to leave me at -$286 for ring games for the weekend.

Monday:

I get to Foxwoods about 7:30 AM to signup for the 10AM start time. No issues with that, I pay my $240, and get assigned to table 13, seat 9. I grab some breakfast, I have a hour to kill, so I buy into a 2/4 game that has an open seat, and break even over 45 minutes. I head down about 9:30.

The blind structures are fast for the STTs to get into the finals on Tuesday. 25/25, 25/50, 50/100, 75/150, 100/200, 100/200/25, 150/300/50, 200/400/75, 300/600/100, and 400/800/125 were the 10 levels, each only 15 minutes in duration. Starting chips were only 1500 for day 1.

We had one crazy aggressive player . He sucked out all over the place, KK catching a K on the river against AA, A9 beating Queens with a four flush hitting. And JTo running down Kings via a straight. He knocked out people left and right, and w/i 45 minutes, we were down to 4, with Crazy Aggressive having about 9000 chips, Rock and Other Guy were at 2500 each, and was hurting with 775 and the blinds at 100/200. I got K2d UTG, went all in, got called by Other Guy with 44, and turned a King. Back to 1600, and still alive. Whew.

Other Guy got upset my King hit, and quickly gave away the rest of his chips. Crazy Aggressive guy started handing out chips like they were candy. He doubled me up with A7 against my KQ on a KQ7Jx board. He double the Rock up with 33 v AK on a board with 5 overcards to his threes.

By the time the pivotable hand happened near the end of level 4, I had built to about 7000 chips, Crazy Aggressive (CA) guy was at 6000, and Rock was at 2000.

I get AJ in the BB (200). Rock is UTG, and raises to 500. CA in SB calls, I call.

Flop is AQx. SB checks, I bet 400, Rock is all in. This is where it gets odd. CA calls the all in, and flips up is A9 of diamonds. Um, thanks man. I call immediately, since I was going to call if he folded. Turn Q. Now, it's even better. CA goes all in! Even though I know his cards. And he's drawing dead to a King, which will only split the side pot. I call. So I have 1000 in chips, 8000 in a side pot, which is mine save a King, and 6000 in the main pot with I think is probably mine too.

I was wrong about the main pot, amazingly the Rock also had an Ace ... AK. But we head into heads up with me holding a 9K to 6K advantage.

We go back and forth for a long long time, and he hits the flops and I don't, so he's actually built an 8500-7000 lead about 45 minutes into the heads up. I finally get a PP of 6s, which holds up against his JT when J in the top pair on the flop, but a 6 is there as well. I gained a 12K-3K chip advantage from that, and it was pretty smooth sailing from there. He eventually has to go all in with K5(the blinds has just jumped to 400/800, and his stack was around 2-3K) and I called with A6, and no one hit.

Go me. Back to the hotel to get some rest and get psyched up for Tuesday.

Tuesday:

There ended up being 889 entries on 91 tables on Day 1. So there are 91 people in the day 2 finals. Foxwoods has decided to pay places 61-90 $269. Top prize is $48K.

So the plan is to immediately start off on the bubble. Most of the players think that's stupid, but Foxwoods REFUSED to pay the extra spot, so a player took up a collection of $3 per person, and 91st place got a 'unoffical' payout of $273. Boo to Foxwoods. 889*$40 fee is nearly $36,000, and you can't find $269 to pay 91st?

There was also a bit of a glitch in their seat assignment software, so they had to re-register everyone at the event because they had multiple people assigned in the same seat.

Anyway, unforunately, I was completely card dead. I got TT once, AK twice, and KJ, and QJ. That was it, other than about 50 hands that looked like 83, or 72, or 35.

The TT I won a decent size pot, and this was the only time I was above the original 2500 in chips. The blinds were the same as the day before, but only went up every fifty minutes, so a much better structure.

My first AK was the beginning of the downfall. It was just at the end of the 25/50 level, and I was MP. Folds to me, and I make it 200 to go, someone reraises to 400 ... I think for a while and call. Flop comes a bunch of junk ... I fire out 300, he goes all in for about 4000. I fold. Chip stack is down to about 1600. It just gets whittled away throught the 50/100 level. I steal a couple of times with things like T9s or QJ, but for the most part I just have nothing.

My table breaks about 1:35 into the event, with me sitting at 1250 in chips. With only 10 minutes or so until the 75/150 level, I'm going to need to go all in soon to double up and get healthy for that level.

Second hand at the new table, I get AK of diamonds. Here we go. I make it 250 to go in MP, and the player immediately after me makes it 1000. Folds all the way around. I decide, if he has KK or AA, so be it. All in for my last 250. He obviously calls. And shows QQ. Cool, I have a fighting chance ...

... until the flop comes QQ5. Ouch. Out in the first level of cash for $269. Oh well ... it was fun for my first live tournament experience.

[grandgnu]

Congrats on making Day 2. You must've been at the table right behind me, I was at table 12. I remembered we still had about 7 players and the table behind me was down to 4.

[SpaceMonkey9]

I was at that crazy 4-8 table Sunday with you. Were you the one in the Flyers jersey? I was the kid in the Sox cap that didn't adjust well to the table and didn't have a hand hold up.

I was there in morning for the ACT III tourney. Finished 20th out of 60+. Lost my concentration for a bit, and made an ill advised steal attempt with A6o, and then then blinds caught up to me. I couldn't bring myself to take off at 1pm, maybe I should have. Still had a good time.

[Mountainhawk]

Yeah, that was me in the Flyers jersey. I was meeting someone there, and wanted to wear something that would stand out. With the NHL out of commission, figured a Flyers jersey would work. [img]/images/graemlins/smile.gif[/img] It was a fun table, if a bit up and down.

[jdhf]

Where are these single table tourny cash games being played at? Ballroom? Are these just going on during the NEPC or are they here to stay?

[grandgnu]

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Where are these single table tourny cash games being played at? Ballroom? Are these just going on during the NEPC or are they here to stay?

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It was the first time I heard of them. I had heard that they were moving the Act satellites into the Ballroom, I don't know if that means that cash single-table tourneys were the same. I played mine upstairs in the poker room. Just ask around.

[beetyjoose]

I registered for the main event so I could find out what day I am starting. I asked around about the expected number of entrants. As usual no one really knew for sure. One of the tournament directors said "atleast 500" which is what I figured. I think about 700 people would be reasonable.

Anyone know of any pros who will be playing. I heard since it wasn't being televised that many of the pros would not be playing. However, there will be a pretty nice prize pool so I would think some of the pros would show up.

I just want to suck out on one pot against Hellmuth [img]/images/graemlins/grin.gif[/img]