TOC heartbreaker

Last night was the much-anticipated Blogger Tournament of Champions, with first place being a $18k package to the Aussie Millions next month. For second place and lower: nothing. So a sick bubble to say the least....

I got off to a slow start: I couldnt get anything going in the first hour, and at the first break I was down to 2,000 from the starting stack of 3,000. But in the second hour I finally got things going, running my stack up to about 9,500 to start the final table. On one key hand, with blinds at 60/120, a player opened to 360 in late position and I shoved with 77 from the button for about 2100 total. Julius_Goat in the big blind then went into the tank, going well into his time bank. He eventually folded after saying "I'll never know if this was a good laydown." If he thought for that long, its a pretty safe assumption he had 77 beat, but its tough to call a raise and reraise with a hand like 99 or TT (which is what I'm guessing he had). The original raiser folded and I dodged a bullet and stayed alive.

A few hands later I doubled through SnailTrax when my AA held off his 97 on an 873 flop, and just like that I was one of the chip leaders. From there, I chipped up and went to the final table with about 10k in chips.

At the final table I was very fortunate and had a terrific draw; I had position on the three biggest stacks (huntsvegas, lucko and jmill) and had the other shorter stacks on my left. Thanks to the great table draw, I was able to continue to chip up, as I made a couple of light 3-bets against the aggressive players to my right and stole the blinds when I could. I also won a flip with 66 against a very short stacks A7o.

With about 5 players left, I won what was then the biggest pot of the tournament, as my JJ held up against huntsvegas' TT. That pot got me up to 30k, which was over a third of the chips in play. Then I busted a short stacked jmill when he shoved his K8s into my QQ. When we got down to 3 handed, huntsvegas and I were about even in chips, with jeciimd on the short stack.
I took a big chip lead though thanks to this hand.

Full Tilt Poker Game #4572450580: Battle of the Bloggers Final (30643270), Table 1 - 400/800 Ante 100 - No Limit Hold'em - 1:08:46 ET - 2007/12/21
Seat 1: Loretta8 (30,315)
Seat 4: jeciimd (19,184)
Seat 6: huntsvegas (31,501)
Loretta8 antes 100
jeciimd antes 100
huntsvegas antes 100
huntsvegas posts the small blind of 400
Loretta8 posts the big blind of 800
HOLE CARDS ***Dealt to Loretta8 [Ah Ts]
jeciimd folds
huntsvegas raises to 2,000
Loretta8 raises to 6,300 <----Standard re-raise against an aggressive player blind vs blind
huntsvegas calls 4,300
*** FLOP *** [2h 6d 6c]
huntsvegas bets 6,000 <----Strange bet, you'd think he'd go for a check-raise if he had a real hand
Loretta8 has 15 seconds left to act
Loretta8 raises to 23,915, and is all in
huntsvegas: wow
untsvegas has 15 seconds left to act
huntsvegas has requested TIME
huntsvegas folds
Uncalled bet of 17,915 returned to Loretta8

I was really in the zone at this point; I thought I had a good read on both players and visions of Australia were dancing in my head. But sadly, it was not meant to be.

The very next hand, huntsvegas raised on the button and I shoved from the SB with 55. This was a no-brainer shove IMO considering how many pots huntsvegas was opening. He folded pretty quickly, and for the next few minutes huntsvegas was playing really really aggressively; one hand he made a 20 BB open shove from the SB, another time he limped the SB then open shoved for about 6 times the pot on the flop. With his aggression, he managed to chip up a little, and I had lost a few pots and fallen down to about 35k. All this led to the key hand of the tournament:

Full Tilt Poker Game #4572586612: Battle of the Bloggers Final (30643270), Table 1 - 500/1000 Ante 125 - No Limit Hold'em - 1:24:41 ET - 2007/12/21
Seat 1: Loretta8 (34,440)
Seat 4: jeciimd (24,084)
Seat 6: huntsvegas (22,476)
Loretta8 antes 125
jeciimd antes 125
huntsvegas antes 125
jeciimd posts the small blind of 500
huntsvegas posts the big blind of 1,000
*** HOLE CARDS ***Dealt to Loretta8 [Qs Ks]
Loretta8 has 15 seconds left to act
Loretta8 raises to 3,000
jeciimd folds
huntsvegas raises to 22,351, and is all in
Loretta8 calls 19,351
huntsvegas shows [As Ts]
Loretta8 shows [Qs Ks]
*** FLOP *** [6c 5h 6h]
*** TURN *** [6c 5h 6h] [5d]
*** RIVER *** [6c 5h 6h 5d] [Ac]
huntsvegas shows two pair, Aces and Sixes
Loretta8 shows two pair, Sixes and Fives
huntsvegas wins the pot (45,577) with two pair, Aces and Sixes


This was certainly a big call, and deserves a lot of analysis. First off, I've already described to you how aggressive huntsvegas was playing. For the last 15 hands or so, he'd been shoving a ton. So his range here is huge, especially since I dont have to have anything to open a pot on the button when there are antes. Another point of consideration is that earlier on at the final table huntsvegas merely called a re-raise of mine with AA. Because of that hand, I didnt think he would make a big shove like this if he had a big pair.

Now let's look at the pot odds. I need to have 42% equity to make this call. Against a range of any ace and any pair, KQs has 43% equity. And that assumes he always shoves with QQ+, which I dont think he does. Remove those 3 hands, and it becomes a clear call against a range of any ace, 22-JJ.

Now it should be noted that I'm an underdog against every single hand in that range, which would discourage some players from calling. However, that fact is pretty much irrelevant. The pot is laying odds; I only need to be 42% against his range, and if I think I have 42% equity or better, its a call, especially since its a winner take all tournament. While its a very small edge, its an edge, and facing two very strong opponents, I'll take a 0.0001% edge if it presents itself.

The thing is though, I think its very possible for me to have the best hand there. huntsvegas was playing so aggressively that he could be shoving with weaker hands like KJ or KT, or even a suited connector like 87s or 76s. Include a few of those hands, and I easily have the 42% equity necessary.

While this seems like a lot of analysis after the fact, I've spent a lot of time doing pokerstove calculations, and I can estimate this stuff pretty closely when I'm playing. If you look at the HH, notice that I took a while before raising. That was because I was doing a quick estimate of stuff like this, and thinking ahead, deciding what I would do if I got shoved on. I decided that I had to call huntsvegas if he shoved, which is why I snap-called his shove. Unfortunately I lost the hand, and was eliminated not long after.

Congrats to jeciimd, who played a very good tournament. Looking back on it, his style seemed to be similar to that of Dan Harrington, as he played a solid game and lulled everyone into thinking that he was playing much much tighter than he really was. I definitely gave his raises and reraises way too much respect throughout that final table; in retrospect I should have been 3-betting him a lot more than I did.

Which brings me to another point. In reading the blogs of some of the other bloggament regulars, I've noticed a disturbing trend. While these bloggers are quick to congratulate jeciimd, many are taking thinly veiled shots at the other players in the TOC. According to these poker geniuses, playing a solid, tight-aggressive style like jeciimd did is the proper way to play tournaments, while players who raise, reraise and shove a lot, and sometimes make big calls are donkeys who couldn't make it out of the first level of the Aussie Millions. I can't recall seeing a bigger load of crap. First of all, there is no one way to play tournaments successfully. You can win tournaments playing the style jeciimd did, and you can win tournaments playing a very LAG style. Lucko and Mag both play a style like this and each of them has north of 6 figures in lifetime profit in MTTs.

But thats not why I'm annoyed. What really bothers me is that these whiners cant congratulate jeciimd on a well played tournament without taking shots at the other players. Whether or not those shots are directed at me, I'm not sure. Frankly, I don't give a shit what other bloggers think about me as a poker player. I'm a relatively inexperienced player who's still learning, and I certainly dont have the results that Lucko or Mag have, but I'm confident in my game and the opinion of someone who saw me at one final table and saw me make one play they disagree with isnt going to change it. But for chrissakes, show some class and stop whining and criticizing others. Certain people are probably upset about not qualifying for the TOC, and thats understandable. However, 27 MTTs is not even close to a big enough sample size to judge who the best MTT players are among bloggers. Obviously the 27 players who qualified weren't the best 27; but thats the nature of tournaments. As for the TOC itself, its one MTT with 12 minute blind levels. There is obviously a ton of luck involved, and while jeciimd played great, just because he won doesnt mean he was the best player of the 27. The luck in the short term is huge.

So to those who couldnt resist taking cheap shots, my message is this:

1. Grow up
2. Stop bitching
3. Show some class

I enjoyed playing in these tournaments for the most part, and most of the bloggers seem very cool, but nonsense like this bothers me. Act like you would in person, and stop taking shots at people behind the safety of a computer monitor.

George