Funny night online! As anyone who knows me will testify I rarely play online. When I do it’s normally to try and satellite into a live event. Played two satellite events tonight, one was free-roll to win a seat in the Luton GUKPT and the other was for a seat in the DTD £300 deepstack on 7th August.
Both started at 8.00 pm which isn’t great for me as I prefer to concentrate on just one game. However things start off fairly good in both and I’m ahead of the chip average and things looking pretty good. I’m concentrating on DTD the most as I’ve paid 12 euros to enter and it’s 5 seats guaranteed with only 50 runners so I like my chances better. The GUKPT sat has hundreds of runners and only 1 seat so I have the table made smaller and I’m playing really basic ABC poker. Though from what I observe so is everyone else.
Anyway I flat call on the button and end up in a 3 way pot with the small and BB. I don’t realise because the screen is so small that the SB is sat out. Anyway the board runs out really dangerous looking and it gets checked all the way down. The SB wins the pot which tilts me slightly as he is sat out (It doesn’t seem right to me that his hand isn’t folded) and I had the BB beat.
On the next orbit when I’m the SB v the still sat out BB it gets folded to the button who makes a small raise. I have 10,5 off suit and ship in as I’m sure he’s stealing. He snap calls and shows Aces. Unbelievably my 10,5 doesn’t get there and I’m out.
Meanwhile I’m doing well on DTD.com then get into the only tough spot I had all night. I’d been playing rock tight prior to the break so as to reduce my spend and I’m sure that some of the table will have noticed. I have for many years employed the simple strategy of playing very tight during the re-buy period and expanding my game afterwards. It works well for me so why change it? Anyway for this comp I have zero re-buys but take the add on for double chips, so my total outlay is 24 euros + 2 juice.
After the break just when I want to open up my game I go exceptionally card dead and when I pick up a hand I could get busy with there seemed to be multiple raises before the action got to me. So it looks to everyone who’s paying attention that I’m the same rock I was pre break!
So to the hand, the blinds get to 400/800/75. My BB gets raised by UTG+2 who has been the most active player at the table. I have no tracker software of any type and rarely take notes but I do watch to see who’s raising and how often and if I get to see the hole cards make a mental note of his/her opening/3 bet range. Now when you play as tight as I do you have to get used to people thinking my blind is an easy steal and I’m easy to push off a hand, neither of which is true. I have many faults in my game but one of the biggest is that I defend too much and I often (live) win big pots when bluff catching as they can’t help but try and shove me around.
Anyway the raise is to 2,062 and he has 31k behind. I have 22k at the start of the hand. With just having to pay an extra 1,262 into a pot of 4,012 I’m getting over 3/1 on my money so trust me my range is huge here. I would have called with 4,5 suited but I actually have Ah4h a hand which is ahead of much of this guys range and the only hand I don’t want him to have is a better Ace.
The flop comes 7s, Ac, 3s. I check and he bets 2,524. Now I’ve seen people in the past in my situation (live) fold their hands here, which astounds me frankly. If I call a raise to hit an Ace then hit one, how can I fold? If you can fold it then you may as well not have called in the first place. Don’t get me wrong I’d have preferred to flop the nut flush or wheel but this now is my made hand and come what may I figure I’m stuck with it.
Now after what looks like a pretty weak cbet I think I’m winning and consider raising but feel that just calling will probably scare him into giving up with the hand if he has nothing, so I just call.
The turn is Qh, and I figure that it’s changed nothing so check again. He bets 7,572 and now I make my final decision here, I know I cannot call this and fold the river as my chip stack would be crippled. So I decide to go with it all the way and make the call. The river is Jh and I check again, this time he snap bets all in and I don’t think about it and just click the call button.
He shows 8h,9c for total air and I win a 44,821 pot that makes me chip leader.
I know in many ways I played the hand very badly/weakly/passively though strangely enough if I’d raised him at anytime during the hand he would almost certainly have insta folded and I would have won a much smaller pot. In a live game I would probably have 3 bet him pre-flop to around 6,500 or if not I would definitely have check raised the flop. But live nobody scares me, whereas online those faceless people always seem to intimidate me a lot more and I often find myself going for the soft option.
I play so much more aggressively live, and when I find myself in one of these tough spots where you can either fold, call or raise I normally opt for the raise and let them make the decision.
Anyway that was the only tough spot I had in the comp and from then on I just cruised to a seat as chip leader all the way.
So I’m off to DTD on Saturday 7th August to play the £336 deepstack. I did quite well last time I played it on the Saturday (day 1) though didn’t win a single pot on the Sunday (day 2) getting knocked out when I lost the one and only race I’d been in throughout the comp.
I’m looking forward to it as I enjoy the 10,000 starting chips and the 45 minute clock and I particularly like it when I’m in for £22 and can apply pressure to people who value their tournament life a lot more than that. So it will not be check/call, check/call at DTD!
Hopefully I can run better this time.
