So i decided to post all the interesting hands i had during the 5d with a basic story of how things went. This will probably end up very very long so im just going to write this up and post it.
DAY ONE:
I get to my table on day 1 and im already a little tilted because i was put in seat 1. I hate seat 1 cause im always doing battle for arm positioning with the dealer and i always lose, so i end up sitting there miserable the whole day. Anyway, i get dealt a really great table, and as my table never switches the whole day ill just list the players with my reads:
Seat 2: very nitty businessman. played a hand very infrequently and always showed down monsters
Seat 3: seemed like a bad internet player. pretty bad/spewy deep but pushbotted pretty damn well, i assumed he was an sng player.
Seat 4: humberto. plays very straightforward/tight
Seat 5: russell rosenblum. seems like a pretty good player, plays tight/solid for the most part, made a big laydown getting like 3.5:1 with AQ on a QJx board vs the guy in seat 2 when he had JJ.
Seat 6: old donk
Seat 7: old donk #2
Seat 8: jennifer tilly. came into the tourney thinking she was uber weak tight, left thinking sort of the same thing but she does make some moves when she thinks people can put her on exact hands shes repping
Seat 9: some young meh player. didnt play like an internet guy but was better than most live only players his age. wasnt too great though, so meh fits the description
Seat 10: andy black, the guy who got 5th in the main event when joe hachem won. plays semi tight but loosens up in lp and calls reraises too often with crap hands.
We start out at 50/100 with 30k stacks so i play a lot of pots early and am taking down most of them. my stack basically fluctuates between 27 and 33k for a while with only a couple interesting hands:
I raise in EP to 325 with AJo, seat 3 calls, tilly calls. flop K86 2 diamonds. tilly checks, i check, seat 3 bets 600 but gives off a tell which made me think he was bluffing, tilly folds, i make it 2100 cause of my tell, he calls, oops. Turn To, check check. river Qo. bink. i bet 4500 into like 5400 and he thinks for a while and folds. booo.
Folds to me on the button i have 98o, i make it 300. both blinds call. this was probably about 4 orbits in and is maybe the 2nd hand the sb (seat 2) has played. flop comes Q84 all spades, i dont have 9s. checks to me i bet 600, sb calls, bb folds. turn 4. he checks i bet 1100 as a 2 way bet, getting value from A or Ks, finding where i am immediately vs flushes/sets/4, and maybe getting a better 8 or Q to fold sometimes. he makes it 2500 and i fold. pretty confident he had a flush or boat and i like how i played this hand.
The next level not much happens. i play basically tight standard and dont get many situations to do a whole lot and my stack again fluctuates between 27 and 33k. I reraise a couple times with AK, play mostly tight, and humberto is constantly telling the table "he plays toooo many handss, if he raise you reraise" which was pretty unethical but i didnt want to start any beef with him.
The 100/200/25 ante level went pretty much the same way. the level started with me raising to 600 with AQo on the very first hand, humberto making it 2500 in the sb, i called. flop came K high, he bet 3500 i folded, then he shows his neighbor the hand and starts pointing and fake laughing at me like i made a horrible laydown. the dealer turns his AA face up to confirm everyones suspicions. the level finishes out with no interesting hands and i had roughly 27k.
The 200/400/50 ante level was a bit of a downer. basically the level was about me value betting with the worst hand. The first hand that came up was me raising to 1100 with T9s and the bb in seat 6 called. flop came 774 and it went check check. turn was a 9, he checked i bet 1500 he called. river was another 4. he checked, i bet 2k, he shoved for 15k and i folded. lose some chips.
After that the guy in seat 9 raised to 1200 i called with KQdd and everyone else folded. flop came QJ4 with 2 clubs. he checked and i checked behind. the turn was a 5. he bet 2k i called. the river was the Tc. he checked and despite it being a pretty bad card i decided i was ahead way too often so i bet 3k and he called with KK. lose more chips. probably down to about 17k at this point.
Then my one of my vbets finally pay off. russell makes it 1200 utg, steaming guy in seat 7calls, i call on the button with 77 and the sb calls. flop comes TT4. goes check, check, bet 2000, i call, they fold. turn 5. check check. river T, steaming seat 7 checks, i bet 3500, he tanks and calls and mucks. back up to about 25k.
An orbit or 2 later im sitting with about 23k to start the hand. andy black makes it 1200 in mp, i make it 3800 right behind him with AKcc folds back to him and he calls. flop comes QJ4 with 2 diamonds. he checks and i thought about betting 2x pot all in but pussy out and check behind. the turn is an 8, check check, river blank, check check, he has 98s and wins the pot. im not sure if i should shove or not in this spot, if i had 14k or less i would probably shove as the pot was around 9k, but betting a little over 2x pot seemed excessive on a board that probably hits him a decent amount, and he showed a propensity for not making laydowns after the flop. im still not sure about this hand but my gut tells me that both a shove and a check behind are fine here.
I'm down to about 17.5k, i raise 88 in middle position to 1200 and the guy in seat 6 shoves for about 15k. I fold and im down to around 16k. Then seat 9 limps utg for 400, im utg+2 with 99, i make it 1800, folds back to him and he calls. flop comes 764 all spades, i dont have the 9s. he leads into me for 2000 and i decide to call and go with it on pretty good turns. the turn is an offsuit 8 putting a 4 straight on board, he puts me all in and i fold. this was the last orbit of the level, and i end it going into 300/600/75a with around 11 or 12k left.
The second hand of 300/600, seat 9 raises to 2000 in the cutoff and i have AJo in the sb, i shove for 10.5k, he thinks for a little while and calls with AJo. I run out a 4 flush on him and double up to 23k.
The very next hand after that he raises to 2000 and heres where its time to go on a little tangent. so to start off the tourney, the bellagio gave us chips in the following denominations: 25, 100, 500, 1k, 10k. there were no 5k chips. it was pretty irritating especially when you constantly had to break down 10k chips so people could get change for their raises/bets. so i look down at AKo, and i didnt want to shove but i was too lazy to count up all the 1ks and make a proper raise cause i was still picking up my stack from my double up. I also didnt want to just throw a 10k out there cause if you dont say anything it ends up being just a call and i have a pretty low voice at the table, so i grabbed the 10k chip and a 1k chip and raised to 11000. he thought for a while and called, flop came JTx all diamonds, this time i had the K of diamonds, he checked, i shoved and he folded, so my bet amount preflop ended up being the best thing possible as he called pre and folded the flop.
My stack was now back up to 35k and i tried to press my edge and started to play a lot of hands. the next 30 minutes or so my stack fluctuated between 35k and 40k trying to get something going but couldnt do more than just break even. then the following hand sequence occured which knocked me down a bit. Andy black raised to 2000 in the cutoff and i called on the button with JTo, blinds folded. flop Q94 2 diamonds. he led 4000 and i just called because i had no backdoor draws or overcards. Turn 5 putting a 2nd flush draw on board. he bet 10000 and i folded. it felt pretty weak tight but i couldnt play it another way. if the flop was T94 and i had QJ i would semibluff the flop but here i just didnt have enough equity when i got it all in to justify doing that and i only had 27k on the turn so semibluffing was sketchy as bluffing in this manor was not his style so i put him on KQ+.
A few hands later still in that orbit i raise 99 utg to 1800, folds to humberto who gives a thumbs up to the dealer and makes it 6k. folds back to me and i turbo muck 99 face up. despite folding a pretty decent hand to him he still says "YOU PLAY TOO MANY HAND". After this hand i had no opportunities to build my stack or even raise to steal and i blilnded down to about 22.5k to end the day. i wasnt thrilled with this but i was fine going into day 2 at 400/800/100 ante with roughly 30bb.
Wow this is getting long, that was just day 1, i played 6 days lol. f it, ill just keep going and ill post some pictures here and there to break up the text some instead of making 6 posts. here is one rodeoblue drew of me which is now my facebook picture.
DAY TWO:
I was lucky enough to draw another great table on day 2. This is probably the last time ill list out the positions and reads just because after day 2 i played on multiple tables every day and there are some repeat people.
Seat 1: jose rosenkrantz. the updates kept saying he won a wpt event, it was probably one of the really early ones. he seemed very very tight.
Seat 2: bushman. he was short and is tight and very solid.
Seat 3: cant remember
Seat 4: farzad bonyadi. played pretty damn well, was pretty solid, capable of laydowns, capable of making moves
Seat 5: blair rodman, author of kill phil. shoves much looser than online players do, open shoving up to 20-25bb sometimes with hands he doesnt want to play postflop. if he gets deeper he raises/cbets a lot more but also willing to make laydowns when deeper.
Seat 6: very tight player
Seat 7: even tighter than seat 6
Seat 8: me
Seat 9: two people, first guy was pretty tight/solid, second guy was an old man who was tight but understood relative hand strength pretty well, however he was very shortstacked
Seat 10: Richard Lee, final tabled main event when jamie gold won, isnt too bad, is sort of predictable when he will make moves based on game flow so you can react accordingly
Day 2 started off with me just trying to claw my way back into things. I won the blinds/antes a few times with steals/good hands, got shoved on a few times and had to fold, and for the most part was not clawing my way up. my stack dropped down to about 15k after the first level. luckily for us, there was a 500/1k/100 ante level unlike the preliminary events.
The level started with me in the bb, and the tight utg 3x'ed and i was forced to fold AQo in the bb when i only had 15k. made me sick because it was the best hand id seen in a few levels but i had to do it. luckily i picked up AKs soon after and doubled through jose rosenkrantz's TT and got up to about 28k.
I got on a bit of a roll, won some pots here and there and managed to grind my stack up to about 35k. I then doubled KK v AK through the guy on my immediate left to get up to about 75k. I grind my stack up to 82k, then the following semi interesting hand comes up at 800/1600:
Fazard limps in mp, which he seems to do with marginal hands, tight guy in seat 6 limps, very tight guy in seat 7 shoves for 8bb on the button, im in sb with AQo, i flat call, everyone folds he has AA. i think i could make an argument for all 3 options here, but it seems like call > fold > raise cause of my reads on people. its really not that interesting of a hand at this point in the day, but as my read on this player improved i think it would become a fold ( i saw him fold QQ to a raise+reraise all in from a 13bb stack).
After this pot, the dynamic of the table became totally perfect. I had 2 huge nits on my right, i had a nit on my left, then richard lee who i could predict fairly accurate when he was making a move on me, then after that another nit and bushman who was short and couldnt really do anything. and farzad didnt really want to mess with me so he avoided raising light so i avoided most of his raises. Basically what happened was anytime it got past farzad and blair i would open. i was opening probably 4 or 5 of every 9 pots. most of the hands were pretty uninteresting as it was just me raising and taking it down or me reraising with a good hand and showing it to try and retain image (i reraised with JJ, KK, and AK and showed 2 of the 3, opponents folded all 3). there was however one cool hand:
At 1k/2k, late in the day, im sitting with about 65-70k in chips. folds to me in the cutoff i make it 5500 with 66. richard lee who at this point is pretty fed up with me and is definitely about to make a move reraises to 16000. i thought about not raising cause i felt this happening but decided to take it one step further. i think for a few seconds and look for some signs in him to make sure he isnt exhibiting great strength. i shove. he thinks for a long long long time and makes a few motions to call and finally folds after about 4 minutes of thinking. he says he made a big laydown, which i suspect to be either TT, 99, AK or AQ, 3 of which seem like a fairly easy laydown (besides the metagame of me knowing what hes going to do) in his spot and AK is a snap call.
Unluckily for me, i was not able to win an all in to end the day, as i lost 2 30k pots with napkins (86s v A7o and Q8o v KJo) so even though I really dominated the table for the last 2 levels i only built my stack up to about 89k. I was actually the biggest stack at the table and the avg to end the day was nearly 120k. we ended the day at 150 people and 100 cash. i would have liked to retain that table for the bubble as it was very very important since 100 cash and they cash for 29k, but the day ended a level or 2 too early for me. It was ok cause i still had 30bb going into day 3, and my table was very very important in determining if i could run up a nice stack on the bubble or not.
Picture time! im really lazy with these, so im just pulling them out of the comments of my last blog entry:
submitted by dahlig, def awesome to turn me into leonidas
not really sure what he made me but it looks funny so i like it.
On a side note, my friend tomson pointed this out to me and its so true, how much does eugene catch-a-lot look like fedor from MMA?
vs.
In a way im glad i didnt knock him out of the tournament, or i would have been put in an armbar.
ok so anyway, onto day 3....
DAY THREE:
So i walk around the table i am on for day 3 and i realize it is one of the worst ever for the bubble. Negreanu on my right has a lot of chips. Octavian c has more chips on my immediate left. After him is AJKhoosier who is short but could easily double and be a pain in the ass, then blair rodman who will do more pushbotting with 20bb and be an annoyance to those trying to steal and across the table is nordberg, who seems kind of meh but still an online player who will be tough on the bubble if he gets chips, and mig, who i consider one of the best and would probably love nothing more than to see me bubble even though he had a 2% swap with me.
I get lucky to win a pretty big pot early. folds to blair 2nd or 3rd to act who shoves for about 65k at 1500/3k/400. folds to me in the bb and i shove over the top with QQ, win vs his AKhh and get up to about 150k. I maintain my stacksize at about 140k til the end of the level and feel pretty good going into 2k/4k/500.
As we draw near to the bubble i hit a few roadblocks. The first that comes up is against a pretty good young asian player who i never caught the name of. He got a pretty big stack when nordberg spewed 150k into him and gave him a 300k stack and started playing pretty aggressively.
He raises utg to 10500 at 2k/4k and i call on the button with 88. flop comes J97 2 clubs. he checks, i bet 14k he calls. i found this to be a little weird and put him on a hand like TT T9 98 87 that he didnt want to bet 3bet all in vs a tight player. the turn came another J and we both checked. the river was the Tc and he checked a third time. I put out a small value bet of 20k cause i thought it was hard for him to call with much worse and he check raised me to 70k. i thought for a little bit and decided his hand looked exactly like TT and he had this way too often for me to call. What made me want to call was my weak river bet inducing a raise but his check on the flop was just too much evidence that he did indeed have TT so i folded. He later confirmed my suspicion that he had TT and this made me feel pretty good about one of the only situations i felt uneasy about. However this did hurt my stack quite a bit as it dropped to about 90k.
About 4 hands later i pick up 88 again in early position and raise to 11k. octavian c calls and the same asian kid reraises to 35k. i folded, they played the hand out and he ended up winning the pot with 99. At this point there were about 115 people left and i probably should have just folded preflop in early position because the bubble is so so significant and im going to get shat on very often here, and its not really a position where im going to be able to get it in light because its like an sng, i probably needed to have a very good hand to get it in cause of the icm.
After that hand, i won one small all in vs a shortstack when i had AA and then didnt get involved in any more hands until the bubble broke about 10 hands later. I came out of the bubble with about 75-80k at 3k/6k/500 (the bubble ended when the level did). The very first hand in the new level i pick up AKo utg, go all in and get called by the big blind who has QQ, and i greenstein him to get back up to about 140k.
I end up going through the rest of the day without a showdown, but built my stack up through stealing blinds and 2 pretty important small pots that padded me up a bit.
The first happened at 3k/6k where i raise to 17k with ATdd and get called by the asian kid in the big blind. flop came 237 1 diamond 2 hearts and it went check check. the turn was the 3 of diamonds giving me the nut flush draw. he led out 22k, i made it 70k and he folded. this boosted me up to about 180k where i remained through 4k/8k.
At 5k/10k i managed to boost my stack up a bit with a little bit of a big blind special. Folded to a decent small blind who limped in and i checked my option with T6o. flop came T53 2 hearts, he checked, i bet 12k, he made it 35k and i shoved for 180k. he thought for a little while and folded what i suspect to be a 5 or a 3. i wanted to play it how i would play a flush draw to possibly get a call from some medium hands like A5 56 44 but he folded and i picked up a decent pot anyway. I won some small hands after that just stealing the blinds or cbetting flops and ended the day at 270k.
here travis032 turns me into napoleon!
DAY FOUR:
Day 4 began with 6k/12k/2k ante. the 2k ante was a huge jump and meant with a 23bb stack i still only had an M of 7.5 which meant i had much less time than normal to make a move. What made matters worse was I had a pretty awful table. Mikael Thuritz (who uses the play2kill accounts but was NOT the one who multiaccounted who is a great great high stakes cash game player), Erick Lindgren, Daniel Alaei (started very short), Peter Jetten (apathy123, the sickest ever) and Markus gonsalves who goes by lurped online.
I won a pot in the first orbit to keep my stack at 270k and the following hand came up in the second orbit which hurt quite a bit:
I raise KTo 2 away from the button to 32k and the button, who is a tight young asian player who wore eyeglasses whose name was Jason Su, asks me how much i have then counts out some chips and calls. the blinds fold. flop comes JdTd4o. I bet 42k, he counts out more chips and makes it 120k.
This is a sick sick spot as I am getting over 2:1 on my money on an all in so if he has a semibluff any reasonable amount of the time i have to go with the hand. I think for a little bit about what is in his hand range, stack my chips up in an easier fashion so i can put them all in and i notice a tell. I wont tell you what it is, but it made me feel like he was strong. I finally decide that he almost always has KK+ here and once in a while has a jack or a semibluff but not nearly enough to justify getting it in with 2 or 5 outs here so i folded. It really hurt to fold given that I was now under 200k and in pretty bad shape but it was definitely the right move.
An orbit later, i pick up JJ in the sb and get it in vs ted kearly who has 99 on the button and i double up to about 420k. By the way, how much does ted kearly look like lou holtz?
 
Def long lost brothers or something...
Soon after that hand, the table broke and i was put at a better one. Level was now 8k/16k and i had about 420k. Octavian c (jordan rich from now on) limps utg, one more limper, i limp on the button with 54s, sb folds, bb checks. flop comes QT3 2 spades. checks to jordan who bets 70k, 1 fold i make it 210k, everyone folds. that boosted me up a bit over 500k. I win another small pot and im up to 550k ish.
Quinn Do, who i was pretty damn impressed by, shoved utg for about 14bb, and i have JJ on the button, i shove over the top and get it in vs QAcc. I win the flip (flop came JTT 2 clubs so he did have some fun royal sweats  ) and im up to around 800k.
Then Eugene limps utg, folds to erick lindgren who completes in the sb, i look at KK in the bb and make it 76k, eugene calls and erick folds. flop comes T96, i bet 110k he folds. If he raised i would have folded because i didnt think he was the type of player to make a move here, but against a player like genius28 or some good online cash game players i have to go broke here because they are bluff raising this flop with such a high frequency that i have to take KK all in, but a lot of players will only show up with monsters here and your equity is too bad to get it all in.
I increased my stack a little bit more then the table broke again. My new table had Gus Hansen had vivek aka psyduck 3-4 to my left so i would have to tighten up a bit. I got lucky one of the first few hands at the table to pick up AKcc and psyduck reshoved on me for about 17bb with QTdd and i held. This pushed me up to about 1.2m and knocked out one of the best players left in the field which was huge.
Gus played crazy Gus style. Played way too many hands, bluffed in horrible spots, but i really liked how deliberate he was with his decisions and actions. its inspiring to see something like that over and over again and im going to take a little more time in each decision i make but seeing as many hands as possible is still important so i wont take too too long. When I got to the table he was at about 900k but after about 45 minutes he had bluffed/bad called his way down to about 175k.
at 10k/20k i raise utg 8 handed to 60k with KJo, he shoved his last 175k i beat him into the pot and he looked disappointed but showed AKs then i showed him my hand. but its ok cause i binked a jack on the river to busto him, which was also huge because he was definitely hard to play against if you dont get hands and eliminating him can never hurt. That bumped me to 1.4 or 1.5mill.
One last interesting hand in the day came when ken rosen (no results but seemed kinda solid) raised to 70k in the cutoff, i made it 220k on the button with AKo, he called. I had 1.5m to start the hand he probably had about 1.1 or 1.2m. Flop came T75, check check, turn 4, check check, river A, check, i bet 250, he tanked and folded. I showed him and then the table AKo for a number of reasons. First, i wanted to show them i was reraising with a good hand. Second, i wanted to show them i was not cbetting every flop like a monkey. And third i wanted to create some rapport between me and the player on my immediate right cause he is my most profitable avenue on the table, and i felt showing him a hand here would give me much more credit especially with him later on so i could go on and abuse him.
After that hand the day went pretty horribly for me. The tables became shorthanded as we played down to 18 players; but instead of giving me an edge, the players all went nutso and it hurt me. Everyone on the table was making these 4-5x raises jerry yang style and huge reraises. Example: i make it 80k at 12k/24k devilfish makes it 450k with 800k behind. Or Matt Casterella opens for 110k at 12k/24k. There was no spots i could play pots with people and i missed all the flops from there til the end of the day, so my stack died quite a bit and i finished the day off with about 1.24million, good enough for 9th place of 18 left.
And here's a picture of my buddy brian from undergrad who is actually completing his math phd turning me into a clown.
DAY FIVE/SIX
Day 5 started off with what i thought was a bad table. I was surrounded by shortstacks and had 2-3 bigstacks on my left, including the chipleader, Daniel Negreanu. The first big hand came about 10 minutes into the day.
Apathy shoved utg for 216k at 12k/24k. i picked up AA right after him and thought for a little bit about what to do. I decided to make it 500k because usually when a good player flat calls in a spot like this they have KK+ and i thought 500k was more representative of a hand like 99-JJ or AQ that i thought was ahead of apathy's range but i didnt want to get blown off the hand by someone isolating. I think despite looking like a monster to some people, flat calling gets far more action so I made a mistake in reraising, but luckily for me Daniel picked up KK and went all in and even luckier for me was apathy having KJ blocking one of his outs. I held and this boosted me up to 2.8million and a big chiplead in the tourney as nobody else had 2m yet.
A few hands later an interesting situation came up. This player wearing greg raymer glasses whose name was Bill Kontaratos raised to 90k at 15k/30k. I flat called in the big blind with TT. I started the hand about 2.8m deep and he was about 1.6m deep. Flop came 854 2 clubs. i check called 100k. the turn was the 2c. check check. river was an offsuit 9. i checked, he bet 200k and i picked up a tell on him which led me to believe he had JJ+ very often. I folded my tens face up and most of the players at the table looked pretty surprised.
I thought folding face up here would be great for metagame implications. In some games people would attempt to run me over after seeing me make a big laydown like this, but i think in this game i will get tons of respect for my bets/raises and just more credit in general, and since i was overwhelming big stack at the table, I planned on being involved in a lot of hands. It worked a little bit, as I won like 4 of the next 7 hands uncontested. But then I received some really bad news as Maria (one of the tournament directors) told me i was moving over to the other table. I just get done setting up my image perfectly and im surrounded by stacks i can just dominate and i have to move tables to one with all the chips. sometimes this isnt a bad thing, but in this situation i think it was horrible. with all the medium to semi short stacks around i could have picked up basically every pot since daniel was eliminated right after i got moved. sick sick beat in my eyes.
At the new table I really dont get involved in many memorable hands. Only 2 come to mind. The first happened at 20k/40k. Ray davis raised to 90k utg, ted called on the button and i had Q7dd in the big blind. I called being offered 5:1 odds even with a weak hand this is too big to pass up. flop came Q82 with 2 hearts. i check call 150k. the turn was another Q. i check ray bet 400k, which seemed very bluffy from his playing style and i called. the river was an offsuit 4, check check he had AK and i won a pretty big pot.
The other hand was sort of a weird play i rarely make but decided to here and kind of like it. Devilfish raises to 120k 2 away from the button and i defend with KTcc. Flop comes AQ4 with 2 clubs. i check call instead of leading out for 3 reasons. First i didnt think he would fire a 2nd barrel here without a hand, second i thought he would fire a second barrel here if a club hit and third i thought i was ahead a reasonable amount of the time, all of which are very good for me. Additionally, i thought he might make some looser calls with Ax if i bet/3bet all in because he just folded a flush and it was the best hand, here's the cardplayer writeup on that one:
Hand #60: David Ulliott raises to 120,000 on the button and Ted Kearly makes the call along with Erick Lindgren. The flop comes 932 and Ulliott bets 280,000. Ted Kearly moves all in and Lindgren folds. Ulliot thinks for nearly 8 minutes before finally folding 75 face up. The table is stunned at his fold and Kearly, who was covered, shows AA. Ulliott then grabs the deck from the dealer and runs out the deck, realizing he would have won the hand. He is given a warning, but he is clearly upset about his fold.
The turn comes another A, we end up checking it down and he has JT and my K high wins the hand. it definitely felt really weak to play the hand like this but i liked it in this scenario.
When the 10 player final table started, the blinds were at 30k/60k and i had 3.5m firmly in 2nd place. I felt really really great about my seat, the chipstacks, my reads on people at the table, everything. I was very confident I could play this situation near perfect. I raise folded 88 utg to matt casterellas 17bb reshove and he showed AA. I then folded for one orbit before i won a couple of small pots to maintain. When the blinds moved up to 40k/80k i still had around 3.2million and my image at that point was fairly tight so i could pull off some moves based on my strong reads.
The first one came 8 handed at 40k/80k. Jimmy tran limped utg with 960k to start the hand, then eugene limped utg+2 with 700k to start the hand. I looked down at KQcc. I had a strong read in this situation that both players did not have big hands and decided to make a funky little play that i would never ever do online but was sure would work in this spot. I made it 275k and everyone folded. I had seen both players do similar things before this and knew how this would play out vs them, i just needed to pick a raise size that didnt commit me against some of the stacks behind me who i knew would only shove light. I really really loved this play given my reads on the people in question.
The second hand was an orbit later. Ray davis minraised to 160k with 1m to start the hand in mp1. i had A9o in the sb and i knew ray was weak from a tell I had, so i shoved and he insta folded in disgust. This was my last good hand, and after that it was all downhill.....
i had about 3.3m at this point. folds to eugene in the cutoff or hijack, i cant really remember, who shoves for 1.05m. i pick up JJ and shove over the top. His A5o wins. down to 2.2m.
About 5 hands later im in the bb and Ray davis mysteriously walks away from the table. We are down to 7 handed on the tv bubble, hes kind of short with like 12bb and he walks away from the table and misses a hand. One of the weirdest most baffling things ive ever seen. anyway, devilfish raises utg to 240k which he has done 3-4 times already at the final table, so i see AJo in the big blind and put him all in and he snap calls with KK and i lose again and im down to 1.2 million. I thought he had a fairly wide range here and I also thought he was capable of making some big folds. He just built his stack up a little bit to about 1.1million and i think he would definitely fold 99- and AJ- in his spot, and possibly even TT and AQ. And even when im calling im not in that bad shape. A few people told me they didnt like this play, but i assure you it is automatic and very very very +EV.
Ray davis loses some more chips, and about a round later he shoves 5.5bb in middle position and shows A7o. the very next hand he shoves again for 600k. I pick up 88 in the cutoff and do some thinking. I cant justify folding because im just too far ahead of his range and i shove over the top. he has AQo and gets there and im down to about 550k now. At this point im really disheartened. Ive lost almost a million in chipstack equity in these 3 all ins and now im suddenly the shortest stack at the table in danger of bubbling the tv table. I manage to fold my way in as ray davis busted in 7th with QQ v AK.
I was left with 330k going into the tv table at 40k/80k/10k. It sucked that they didnt roll the blinds back as they usually do but its ok. I did a lot of talking with good players that night trying to figure out some optimal shoving ranges and i was shocked with how wide a range of answers i received. it was pretty crazy to have good players disagree so much on what should be a fairly simple question. here is the range i finally decided to use, thanks to luckychewy on 2p2 for this:
22+,A2+,K5o+,K2s+,Q8o+,Q4s+,J8o+,J6s+,T9o,T7s+,97s +,87s
turned out to be the top 44% of hands and i seemed confident going in with this range. All my work turned out to be a waste as I picked up AJo on the first hand of the tv table and lost anyway.
The next 2 days after that I was very very disappointed and upset at what transpired from 7 players down. I got pretty sick and slept for nearly 24 hours off and on waking up to throw up some. I had never dealt with such a huge loss in equity before and I havent been physically sick in about 8 years, so this was clearly a mentally brought on sickness. Im over it now, i realize its just poker and ill have more opportunities in the future, but it was really hard to get through at first.
Hope you guys enjoyed the writeup, i realize its very long, but i partitioned it pretty well so you can pick up easily if you stop reading after a certain day. enjoy |
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United States. Dec 22 2007 11:27. Posts 8955
