Orleans Open Trip Report and a Questionable Play

Irieguy · #1 07-25-2005, 05:22 PM

Thanks all for the congratualations; here are a few notes and a hand or two to discuss.

The event was the $300 NLHE with 1 rebuy at the Orleans Open. The Orleans Open used to be a huge event each year, and was the first "big" tournment that I ever cashed in years ago... but with the WSOP moving to June/July, the Orleans Open was hurt pretty badly. I expected a pretty small field. I never saw the exact number of entries, but the prize pool was $62,000 or so... so I imagine there were close to 150 players. I was happy about the tournament size and structure.

Within 5 minutes I remembered why NLHE sucks so badly as a poker game, and how the internet (and SNGs) has made it even worse. We started with $1500 chips with an optional rebuy and the blinds were 10/15. That's 200 big blinds of ammo, which is better than many WSOP events. But it didn't matter... the standard raise was 150-225 preflop from the very first hand and the standard flop bet was all-in. I really hate no limit holdem. Now thanks to this forum, I rated to play push-fold poker better than probably anybody in the room... but I was disappointed that the tournament was going to simply be a game theory calculation instead of a poker match.

I pushed and folded well, and even tried to see a few flops, and got my share of cards. Everytime I would get a big stack, I would take a 3-out beat and go back to being short... so, a standard NL tournament for anybody who's luckbox isn't working well. I felt I played the first several levels pretty well, considering the circumstances. Then, once the antes were added (25 ante, 150/300 blinds with an average stack of around 6,000), the game changes significantly. With so much money in the pot relative to the average stack of the tournament, too many players make incorrect folds and as long as you have some good reading skills you can really accumulate some chips and stay afloat without much difficulty.

They paid 18 spots (we ended up taking money off the top for 19th to avoid hand-for-hand play), and when we were down to 24 the following key hand took place:

Blinds 300/600 with 100 ante. 8-handed, 1700 in the pot preflop. Average stack around 15,000.

UTG (young, overly aggressive player) limps for 600 which wasn't rare for him, and didn't rate to mean a monster holding. His stack was around 20K

Passed around to the SB who completes with a stack of 10K behind.

I check the BB with 6-2o, and I have around 15K. There's 2300 in the pot.

Flop comes 8-8-5 no suits. Checked around.

Turn is an 8 and the SB leads out for 1200. I call because my call should make this hand very easy to read on the river, and UTG calls.

The river is a deuce, and the SB checks. Sweet. That means he doesn't have anything at all... but I need to make a good decision here or risk being forced to make a giant call or likely bad fold if UTG moves at this pot... which he will probably do. I decide to check and UTG bets 2400 into the 5900 pot. The SB surprisingly calls. This is a little disturbing because it means that I may not have been able to bet the SB out of the pot if the river didn't hit me... which was my plan all along. I don't know, maybe my check on the river allowed him to believe his king-high was good against UTG. I called (since no better hand would fold to a raise) and collected a nice pot.

Shortly thereafter I took a horrible beat when I flopped 2-pair with J-10 on a jack-high board and got A-10 to move all-in at me. He made his ace on the river and it looked like my tournament was over. But I won a few 60/40 favorite races and was able to steal a few blinds from there.

Once we made the money it was horseshoes and handgrenades for an hour and I just sat tight and made the final table as a short, but adequate, stack without any trouble. Down to 15 players I folded JJ to an UTG raiser who I had a good read on, and he showed queens. That was the first moment when I felt like I was going to win the tournament.

The final table was quite a tough group: it included Stan Shrier (3rd place in the WSOP main event a few years ago), Mike M. (WSOP Bracelet winner, 2004 3K NLHE), 2 local pros that I knew, a very tough/agressive tourist, and only 2 true fish.

Now, I had been drinking Heinekens since noon, and the final table went until after 2am... so some details might be blurry, but here's a hand from the final table:

blinds 1000-2000 with a 500 ante. 8 players left with 3 short stacks behind me. I was UTG with a slightly above average stack and the small blind had big stack, the BB had less than me.

I get red tens and decide to limp, hoping that a short stack will push, one of the big stacks will call, and I can limp-re-raise and race the shortstack with a bajillion dead chips in the pot. Everybody folds and SB completes. BB checks and we go 3-handed.

Flop is Q-4-3 with two spades. It's checked to me. There's no way these guys don't lead with a queen, and they probably fire with a flush draw. My hand is good, but I don't want to face a decision yet... so I check.

The turn is meaningless, a red 8 or something below my tens. SB checks and the BB bets 6K. I call and the SB folds. The river is another blank and the SB instantly bets half his stack... around 10K, into me. I replay the hand in my drunken brain, and can't figure out two cards that he could have that beat my tens. I min-raised him and he folded. This is the type of hand that seems great at the time... but after reflection I think there's a decent chance I just got lucky and actually played the hand like a complete donkey. But it was a big one.

5-handed I had my one and only suck-out of the tournament by beating Stan's AKo with my A-9s... and as the big stack from there it was just reads and math.

First place was 20K, but we took some off for 19th and then made a save 3-handed, so I ended up with a few K less than that.

Now, as Raptor advised, I can "just chill and play 5K heads-up SNGs on Stars. Holla."

Irieguy