I'm rich in spirit

Today I played my first event at the Venetian- a $340 NL tourney that drew almost 900 players and boasted a first place prize of 69k. 69k buys a fuck load of tamales (even in Vegas) so I was really excited heading into the event even though I was operating on very little sleep.

I wasn't sure at all what to expect of the playing field. There's been a lot of buzz amongst some of the low dough tournament sharks I know about this series and I was worried the room would be packed full of young grinders who weren't yet bankrolled for the WSOP events down the street.

Not the case. These are good, juicy tournaments with a decent amount of play and a really great structure if you (like me) are used to low dough crap shoots with 20 minute blinds that regularly double and 50 bb starting stacks.

However, despite the decent starting stack and long levels the general looseness of play still dictated a degree of caution. Several hands in the early going saw 4 players head to the flop for 3 bets each and 4800 in the middle before the flop was dealt- it adds up quick even with 50/100 blinds. It was a loosey goosey kind of game so I was determined to take it nice and easy and choose my spots carefully. I'm not so sure that was the right strategy now. If you have players willing to stick it in with ATo and whatnot for large raises pre it doesn't really make sense to slow play AK (like I did) But, it was my first live tournament in quite awhile and I was determined to make a good show of it and probably played it closer to the vest than I should have. I don't really know.

How Not To Play AK

(also known as "How To Play AK like A Real Proffessional" in the alternate universe in which I won this hand and wrote a results oriented blog about it)

Me - 13,500 chips

75/150 blinds no ante

loose UG raises to 300 (previous min raises from this guy hadn't signified great hands)

I flat with AsKc in m2 (what a great idea)

Button flats

Sb (new player with near 12k starting stack) reraises to 1500 total.

UG folds

I call 1200

Button folds

Pot size- 3750

FLop- Ad 5d 2s (two diamonds)

Sb leads 1500

I call

Pot size- 6750

Turn- Jh

Sb checks

I bet 2500

Sb check raises all in for 6825 more.

What does he have??

The hands I was worried about here were AJ and JJ. Nothing else made sense to me, except perhaps a stubborn KK, AQ, or AJ (the table had been really loose so far which impacted my thinking certainly- unfortunately I had no information on this guy since he had only arrived a couple hands prior). I was about to fold when I decided to count up the pot- one glance at all those 1k yellow chips and I immediately forgot about folding. I had to call 6825 to win 18575 and I felt like an incorrect fold would be catastrophic, especially since I had under repped my hand so much.

I called, he tabled 55 for the flopped set (I hadn't even considered 55 or 22 as I just couldn't imagine someone making a big squeeze with those hands when it was so cheap to call and set mine).

My first thought- what a lucky asshole! Who 3 bets 55 against an UG raiser and two flatters from the small blind- AND THEN ACTUALLY FLOPS A SET!?

My next thought of course was how I could've done just about anything differently in the hand (5 different spots to deviate- 6 if you add folding AK to the reraise preflop to the mix, which is pretty impossible for someone who plays 45 man tournaments on Full Tilt constantly where AK glows like the Virgin Mary's Holy Ass Crack) and could've conserved chips or convievably even won the damn pot.

1. A reraise my AK preflop to 1000. I do not know what happens after this as I don't know if the sb would flat here. If he does flat I probably wind up calling an all in c/r on the flop due to the flush draw and smaller big aces possibility. Same result. If he folds I pick up a nice, easy pot most likely.

2. When the small blind 3 bets and UG folds, I could've reraised. I put him on a really strong range however and thought I'd be better off taking a flop in position rather then getting in a race situation preflop for a ton of chips.

3. I could have raised the flop. Unfortunately most raises are pretty committing and he'll probably fold a few hands I can try and get more value out of by slow playing my AK. I kinda doubt raising the flop would've gotten me very far.

4. I could have checked back the turn. The Jack wasn't a great card for me, but I'm still most likely way ahead or way behind. I really felt like I had the lead in the hand and wanted to squeeze in a little value on the turn. I felt like KK and QQ would call me one time, and AQ wasn't going anywhere either. Now of course I really wish I had checked back the turn. The river brought a king however, so I'm not sure I would've been able to avoid doubling him up on 5th street anyway.

5. Lastly, I could've folded the turn to the check raise. When I have AK and flop top pair and get check raised all in at some point I try to ask myself if this guy would do that with a weaker ace, a draw, stubborn KKs. . . basically I try to talk myself into calling because the guy must be a donkey, even though I *know* that that spot is often a clear FOLD. Would AQ or AT really be check raising all in on that turn or would they be trying to keep the pot small and allow me to bluff? Could he be convinced by my passive preflop and flop play that I have kicker trouble, or an underpair to the ace and he's just trying to muscle through with his KK or QQ? Did my flat of the flop convince him that I had some sort of draw and now he's trying to protect his hand?

Moral of the story- I'm a donkey? I don't know. My intention going in was to play as much small ball as possible and try to use my "superior reading ability" to make good decisions post flop. Apparantly I failed that test- but hey it's tournament poker and shit happens, and luckily there is tomorrow to look forward to, and I'm actually pretty excited to play again.

After losing that pot I was left with 14 bbs- which is actually a pretty comfortable position for me lol. I think I'm pretty good low on chips (I'm good at making 1 decision per hand apparantly) AND felt like my short stack was actually quite a bit stronger than normal being that it was a live tournament and I was able to pick up all sorts of info that enabled me to let go of small pocket pairs and weaker aces where i don't think I could've withheld jamming if it were online. I hung in for another 2 hours or so oscillating between 7 and 17 bbs at various points until a particularly brutal level jump (200/400 with 25 ante to 300/600 with 50 ante) left me on the ropes. To make it worse I made it past the blinds on one table only to be moved to another table UG1 to have to fold through the blinds AGAIN and be down to just 4 big blinds. Getting an inauspicious table change at those times can really feel like God is sinking a wet crap into your throat, but unfortunately it's considered completely fair and normal, even if a little unlucky.

Finally I sunk my chips in after it was folded to me in the CO with 57o and ran into AJs in the bb. It was a gross spot to go all in but the bb had a good stack to pick on so there it went. Bye bye.

I haven't been sleeping well at all since I've gotten here so I'm hoping to catch some zz's and perhaps play some cash at the Venetian later tonight. Incidentally I've decided to take rryu's advice (a fellow grinder/poster at BadBeatsPoker.Net) and buy in for 70 bbs for these games to get max value out of my limited bankroll. In his words- 50 bbs to double up with and 20 to splash around with! Sounds like a plan.