Thursday 14 May 2009

Satellite Day and Night

Two bits of poker success yesterday, one big and one small.

Was killing time at home when off work not feeling particularly well, but (feeling a little better obviously) played a daytime freeroll feeder on Bluesquare and won that, which got me into another $5 feeder last night, which I also won, so fingers crossed my luck will hold and I may get a trip to Dublin out of it, as it earned me a place in the Grand Final (sounds grand, but it’s only a $55 buyin) of the European Shorthanded Championship Qualifying series on Blue Square, which takes place next week.

The big news is that at the same time as the $5 satellite, I was also winning a $2250 package to play at GUKPT Newcastle, by virtue of the $109 Rebuy Super Satellite on BlueSquare. That lasted a bit longer. Plenty of big names and GUKPT regulars in the field last night – Jeff Kimber (I had two interesting hands against him and knocked him out), Jimmy Morgan, David La Ronde, among others.

First hand of note against Kimber I raised to 360 (3BB) in mid-position with pocket 10’s, he was a couple of places to my left, and flat called as I expected. All fold to the button who pops it to 1380. I need a double up as I’m a bit below average and with 20-odd left need to get busy if I’m going to make a dent in this, and I put him on a squeeze so push all in. Kimber folds, saying after the hand he folded JJ – which he obviously didn’t fancy in what looked like being a three-way pot, thankfully he’s a good player – and the button calls and flips AK, which doesn’t improve.

Ten hands later, Jeff's exit hand was the standard iPoker “setup” (or so we sometimes like to think), but it happens live too. Anyway, I had AA in early position, raised 3bb, Kimber flat called again, 7 high flop with two diamonds and I put him allin, which he called with KK. Game over, Jaffacake.

The best part that while the pros were rebuying willy-nilly, I had got there for $21 the previous night in a $11 feeder with $10 add on. I took the add on last night too, so my total investment was $121, about £80, so a cheap way of qualifying and more than covered by recent winnings and the £420 expenses that comes included in the package.

Was kind of surprised that Jeff Kimber was playing a satellite at all since he is supposed to be sponsored by Bluesquare – but if his deal is all based on rakeback, rather than the company just shipping him tournament fees, that might explain it. Since he recently swapped stables from Ladbrokes to Bluesquare who knows how bad a deal he was on there.

Had to play it a bit careful because at one point a guy was moved to my table on my immediate left with a monster stack, which restricted my action. When we hit the final table was surprised to see he had gone, but the NEW guy immediately to my left had even more of a monster stack – more than half the chips in play with 9 left – so I had to keep out of his way, sacrificing my small blinds 3 times out of five on average, but stealing out of position so it looked more plausible than the standard button/SB raise. Had a swings and roundabouts final table, mostly building gradually but steadily, with a few dips, never really higher than 4th from 18 left, and had drifted down and back up again, there wasn’t much between us apart from the one chip mountain. But happy enough in 4th, with 3 seats available and $550 for 4th. Got a monster hand with 6 left – KK in late position and a player UTG raised to about 2125. I reraised to 5800 and he/she called, leaving 3.7k behind, so it was all going in come what may.

Thankfully it was a 10 high flop, she pushed it in with Ace 10, missed her 5 outs, and I scooped the pot, putting me a very strong second. Should have just sat tight then, but a few hands later the shortstack pushed for about 40% of my stack, I looked down at Ad Kd, thought I could take him out, pushed all in to isolate, and find I’m up against JJ which held. Pairs were mostly standing up against the big Aces last night. When I got low in chips earlier on the final table, my push with pocket 2’s got through against the AQ held by the lady mentioned above who went out with A 10. So I had to get back to being more careful … and being an innocent bystander proved to be the best policy, as it turned out.

First significant action with 5 left involved Roscopiko (he used to post on AWOP a lot, but he’s a North East player and they have their own forum up there now). He’d been bullying the table whenever the monster stack wasn’t involved, and obviously thought he was the boss. I was mainly folding to his raises but threw in the odd challenge, usually when I had some chips invested in the blinds. The one that stands out was when he raised my BB and I called him with 2s 3s. Flop came xxK, not a spade in sight. I checked, he bet, I called. Turn is another K, I bet half the pot and he folded. It was easy to see what he was doing, but I didn’t think it was worth taking him on too often though. I am quite happy to appear weak at the table, it may be one of my strengths, so when you do make moves they think you have it. Hopefully.

Anyway, we are five handed, on the bubble, and Rosco in the SB has raised Jimmy Morgan’s BB twice, only for Jimmy to push and he folded. This time his raise was just called and they saw a flop – 3 4 x – with a couple of low diamonds. Jimmy pushed with JJ, Rosco called with Ad2d – he had Jimmy covered, but not by much, and hit his flush on the river. Arrividerci Jimmy.

So with at least $550 coming my way, I set about ensuring that I didn’t do anything stupid so I would get one of the seats. I was probably short stack at this stage with about 16k, big stack 50k plus, Rosco 26k-ish, and the other guy maybe around 18k. Not worried in the slightest, quite happy with my short stack game as I get so much practice at it, but was kind of hoping that a couple of the bigger stacks would get in a tangle before I needed to make significant moves.

There followed some movement of chips in a bit of a merry-go-round, Rosco lost a stack of chips, some to me, some to the others, then he got involved in a scuffle with the big stack when the bully set him all in preflop. Rosco made the call with 77, and this stood up against the bully’s A4os, so Rosco is healthy again. Damn! Five or six hands later, the most bizarre thing happened. With blinds still only at 250/500, after nearly four hours play, Rosco raised to 2200 under the gun, button folds, I fold in the SB, and the big stack flat calls in the BB. Flop is A J x, Rosco puts out a continuation bet of 5500, big stack all in for 39k+. Rosco has about 14k behind, sweats it for a moment or two, then eventually makes the call with QQ – big stack had A6. It was the easiest laydown imaginable, and he didn’t make it. Since he was aware from the earlier hand that Ace Rag was clearly in the BB’s range to call, and the BB didn’t NEED to bluff (other than to represent AJ against a worse Ace), it was the wierdest call I have ever seen. Even worse than some of mine. Anyway, even if the big stack had lost, to a better Ace maybe, he’d have had 26k left and still be second, so he had nothing to lose, but more importantly nothing to gain if he didnt have a hand. So for saving me having to put in more effort, grateful thanks to the Geordie grinder. Better luck next time.

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