Winstar $2100 Tournament Review

Ugh is the way I'm going to start the write up about this tournament. I played day 1B and had what I would consider a bad table, I had Joseph Cheung (3rd in chips in November 9), and two very solid internet guys. I knew the face of one of them but couldn't place him. We started with 10,000 in chips and blinds at 25/25. This gives the illusion of a deep structure but antes were introduced in level 4 or 5 and therefore everyone becomes short quickly. It really just makes you want to gamble earlier than you really should in a $2100 buy in.

I managed to chop my stack in half in level 2 when i open AQo UTG+1 and proceed to get 5 callers!, I lead 3/4 pot on AQ7 and get a single caller from a poor local. He again check/calls a 7 turn for almost pot, the 7 on the turn brings a two flush in diamonds. The river comes a K that fails to complete the flush and after he checks, I proceed to make a thinnish value bet. He min check raises and I go in the tank, I obviously know its for value, just thought there was a small chance that he was value raises an A assuming we were chopping. Plus he is so bad that I wasnt prepared to fold with so much in the middle. He rolls over TJdd, having called with a gutter, turned a flush draw and then binked the gutter on the river.

I doubled up soon after by 3betting QQ pf and being called by KTcc. After the flop of QT7cc, we quickly got it in and I managed to hold. I got a small rush of cards after the first break and managed to get my stack to 14k before I decided to brain fart it all away. A solid player opened in the hijack and I sensed he might be weak so I elected to take a flop with A3hh. Normally its a standard 3bet but I made a mistake. We saw a flop of T25dd and I took a check/call line on the flop with the intention of taking it away on future streets. The turn Jh then gave me a gutter with a flush draw and here is where I made my second mistake. He lead for a pretty solid bet on the turn and I elected to check/raise. He bet 1750 on the turn and I check raised to 4k, leaving me 8k behind that I was going to shove on any river, if I was called. Sadly for me he took very little time to shove in on me and it left me in a gross spot. If I think my over is good then I have about 30% equity and I'm needing to call 8k to win 20k which is 2.5-1 on my money. Obviously not getting the absolute correct odds I was pretty confused what to do. With the tournament structure in mind, I made a crying call and was shown QJdd for top pair + flush draw. I blanked the river and was out. I think its interesting to note that the river was a Tcl which would of been a great card for me to represent had he decided just to call.

I had a second seat and entered Day 1C. This went a lot smoother and I played well throughout. The poker gods caught up with me after dinner when 88 < AQ and then AK < AA in a blind battle and that was all she wrote. Not too interesting but I finished a more respectable 155th.

I had the opportunity to join the Flux guys in Atlantic City for the Borgata series but things in my personal life aren't going to allow that to happen sadly. So much credit needs to go to Jared and Nick for the excellent job they are doing with their stable, really great guys to work for and a breath of fresh air in the staking world. Hopefully I will be able to get together with them soon.

Next major foray into live tournament poker is likely to be the WSOP circuit event at Choctaw in January.

I will post my August results shortly, after spending time away playing live I really need to log some