Tuesday, March 23, 2010

Its been a long time coming

Punta Del Este continued

Well that was fun, I busted into level 6 today in the main event 200/400 with ante of 50, to be honest nothing went right for me today, from my table draw to the cards I held. I had SixthSense19 to my left who is Uruguay’s only online player and is quite sick, beside him was Humberto Brenes not too tough a spot as he plays quite straightforward but not a weak spot, the only value on the table was two local South Americans and a old US gentleman qualifier(but he was playing very tight), the other three seats where filled by two young solid South Americans and a Norwegian guy.

My first real hand of the tourney that I played was vs. SixthSense, I raise QTcc in early position to 400 he flats to my left(he had been playing a lot of pots and over betting and stuff),

Flop comes 984ss, I bet 600 to just try and end the hand he flats,
Turn comes Ad. This is a good card for me to continue to bet as all my Ahigh continuation bets get there, there aren’t many Ax hands in his range that call the flop, he more than likely has something like TT T9, JT or a FD, so I bet again 1325, I know he won’t fold a FD or a SD here, hell he might not even fold nine, but my plan was to fire most rivers as he will fold all of them to final bet, he thinks about raising and calls,

River 2 no FD has been completed, this where I had to be careful with my bet sizing cos he might snap me off with 9 or 8x or bluff raise if he senses weakness,

I bet 2200 and he folds after thinking for 3mins, the hand I most rep on the river is something like AK or AQ imo and he is prob unsure whether I would fold that to his raise, but my range does have hands that don’t fold to any river action, therefore he can’t really turn any hands into bluffs but he can’t make light call downs.

About an orbit later I pick my first real hand of the day KK, old South American guy limps, I make it 525, other old South American calls(he had played one hand of note where he c/r a K4x flop vs. Humberto 1025 to 5k)

So we go 3handed to the flop- T4cc7, the limping SA bets 450, I figure this is nothing but a FD or something weak and for some opponents is a set, so I go ahead and value-raise to 1425, I can call HU but can’t afford to let the guy behind come in,

he quickly makes it 5k, SA leader folds pretty quickly, now the stacks where about 20k effective at the start, so my decision on the flop decides whether I play for stacks or not, I figure this guy has a set nearly always, either way I felt like I was drawing to two outs nearly always, I also don’t have Kc so no backdoors, so I decide to fold but show cos I feel he will show if I do regardless, he shows top set I feel good,

Nothing really happens good for me until I pick up KQdd vs. the Norwegian, he makes it 550 UTG its like his first hand cos he was 2hours late and only arrived at the tourney, blinds 100/200, I decide to flat,

Flop comes 984dd, he checks I bet 800, he calls, I’m still unsure what he has he could be floating some of the time have like 44-AA, some 9x and 8x hands and some SD and Fds, I do have quite a big draw so tbh I don’t care what he has,

Turn Jd, he leads for 1400, I’m like hmmm, I think this can be BS a lot of the time, there isn’t a lot hands that c/c flop that can bet/call the turn so I decide to flat again to keep lots of weak hands in my range,

The river comes a pretty safe 2s, he bets like 5200 and I’m like sigh, I eventually call to be shown ATdd , I thought of folding but my hand is just too strong too fold, I posted the hand on Irish poker boards,

So that left me with like 10k or so, managed to build this up to 24k by 200/400 with an ante of 50 with no showdowns bar me 3betting AT and getting one street of value on a A2245 board vs. an unlikely KK,

I call a Ten BB shove from late position with AQ(in the BB), he had the top of his range in AK, I drop to 20k,

The second of the big hands came when the old South American brings it in for 1200 UTG, Max the Norwegian flats, which is nothing unusual he has been playing pretty lag especially versus this guy, I pick up AKdd, I raise to 3.9k and sixth sense shoves for 11k folds back to me, I’m never folding here and I run into the top of his range KK no suck out for me and I’m down to like 8k and the blinds go up to 300/600 75 ante, I shove 77 from mid position into QQ and its busto for me.

I did enjoy my stay in Punta Del Este that is the one advantage of playing tournaments in these wild exotic places is that you get to experience a completely different culture. The language barrier was painful at times. The most interesting thing of the trip happened on my return flight from Sao Paolo to Amsterdam, I always choose the aisle seat if I am travelling alone, its just easy if I need to get up at any time during the flight, I have never encountered someone on the inside who abuses the I need to go the toilet, well I never had a guy with diahorrea, a drug problem or a kidney infection beside me before. We get on the plane he goes the toilet far enough, plane stabilises in the air and he needs to go again, ah maybe he had a few beers in the airport, the problem arose maybe after 2hours he had went the toilet 4times, each time I had to get up stop what I was watching and wait for him to come back which was 5 to 10mins, so the food came and even before the flight attendants came to take are trays, I told he would have to wait. When she did come I let him out and I went for a stroll down the plane to cool off, its only 3hours into the flight we have another 9hours to go, you don’t want to get into a row with someone who you have to sit beside, so I’m down the back of the plane and I see this middle age south American man going towards the door on the plane and his hand going towards the lever of the plane, my natural reaction was to push him and ask what the fuck are you doing? He barks back in Spanish/Portuguese and go back to the door in a bit of frantic fashion, before I really know what has happened I have punched the man and he hit’s the deck and as he tries to get up I put my knee into his back and shout he was trying to open the plane door, the flight attendants come rushing to see what has happened the apprehend the man, and I explain what has happened, while a couple of flight attendants talk to the other guy, I get escorted back to my seat and he tells me he will get back to me. So the guys story was that he was looking out the window and used the lever for leverage and that when he was barking frantically he was saying why you pushing me or what not, he claims he doesn’t speak English and did not know that it was an open lever, the good news for me he was not going to press charges, and the second good part was that shitty shitty bang bang didn’t go the toilet again.

I do apoligise for the lack of updates I had 2/3 of that wrote back after busted added to it now, this is pretty long so I will post another update in the next couple of days of more present events,

Later

Jay