WSOP 1500 PL Report

[MLG]

I played like crap in the NL the day before this even, and then lost with KK to AK and AA on two separate hands to knock me out in the first half hour. After talking over a few hands I misplayed in that even with Sossman we decided I was calling a little too much (as opposed to raising) and that I needed to get more aggresive.

Level 1, Blinds are 25/25 with 1500 starting chips: I play very aggresively, raising limpers a lot and stuff. I run a big successfull bluff to get up to 2500 but slowly give it all back and then our table breaks, and I continue to dribble down till I'm at exactly 1500.

Level 2, Blinds 25/50: About two hands into level 2 I flop a set of sevens and win 1k in chips to put me at 2500. After that I get a little more active. A player to my right makes it 125 to go and I call right behind him with 97 of clubs and the small blind also comes along. Flop is K107 with two clubs. Both players check and I bet 200. SB c-raises to 700, original raiser folds, and I repot it. SB folds what he says later was KQ.b This puts me at like 3500 and I chip up to about 4500 to end the level.

Level 3, Blinds 50/100. First hand of the level, two limpers to me and I make it 400 with KJ, tight player immediately to my left moves in for 1450 total. I take my medicine (its a pretty damn close decision) and dont suck out on AK. I build again when I limp K10s behind a limper and make a flush to win a nice pot. I then get very active (and I win a coinflip with AK agains QQ) and get up to about 6k by the end of the level.

Level 4, Blinds 75/150. A good player in LP raises to 450. I defend my BB with A10s. Flop is Axx rainbow. I check and he bets about 700, and I c-raise to 1600. He thinks and then moves in. I show him the A and fold. I win some back by reraising Kristy Gazes preflop. She opened raised and I repopped her from the BB with 55, she gave up (She was the only person I played with this weekend that I recognized. Nice person, she came up to me at the buffet later to tell me how well she thought I was playing). Last hand before the table breaks it folds to the SB who limps. I check the BB with 97o. Flop is 1083 with two hearts (I have the 7 of hearts). He bets 150 and I pot it to 600. He calls. Turn is the very interesting 9 of hearts. He checks and I pot it again. He thinks a long time before folding. At me new table Doug Lee is two to my right with what seems like half the chips in the whole tournament. I win a few small hands and lose some others. I reraise an LP raiser when I had KQ, and he folded. Later he raised again, but it felt different so I just called with AQ. A short stacked button came along. Flop was 722, and the preflop raiser checked. Somehow I kept myself from taking a stab at the pot and the button got it all-in with 88. The preflop raiser shut me out by raising, and then flipped over AA. Sometimes reads aren't something specific, just a sense you get.

Level 5, Blinds 100/200. I only played one interesting hand this level, and it was my last one. A monster stack is moved to my immediate left. Its folded to me in the SB with KQo. I just limp and Mr. monster stack makes it 600. I repop it to 1800 total (1200 for him to call). He calls the limp reraise, and I'm left with 3700 in my stack with 3600 in the pot. I had decided before making the raise preflop that if he called I was just going to move in on almost any flop. So I did on a J65 flop. He insta-called with 55. I go out in about 300th.

Afterthoughts: Poker is a funny game. After the 1500 NL I was very down on how I played even though I lost most of my chips on two hands I couldn't have avoided. After busting out of the PL while I was dissapointed I was also very very happy with how I played even though I bluffed off all my chips to get knocked out. It just goes to show that when you analyze your game you really need to look at more than your bust out hand