A very satisfactory night

[peterbirks]

Without going into too many details (no time, small sample size, etc), last night's move into a new strategy chopped off a very nice $315 in 45 minutes. And, yes, the cards were nice, but my new strategy seemed to work as well. By this I mean that I was comfortable with it. At the moment it's a bit extreme and I may moderate it as time goes on. I'll post fuller details later in the month. Anyway, that puts me $55 UP on Party $5-$10 for the month, which isn't a bad recovery from more than $500 down on May 3rd.

The night then got better after I entered the bonus comp on Betfair. I casually won £12 at a couple of £1-£2 tables (thus paying the entry fee). Amazingly, this ten quid plus 10p fee, where your winnings are (I hope!) multiplied by the number of months that you have played on the site, only attracted 497 entries rather than the 1000 max. Incredible. This had to be about the best overlay ever.

Anyway, by now I felt well in the zone. I refused to make a big laydown with JJ on a flop of 9xx when my opponent put in a very big bet. He had A9 and that was a double-through when I put him all-in on the turn (a rag card).

A further knock-out was achieved when I got KK on the button (He raised in late. I flat call. I bet hesitantly and small on a rag flop. He raises me all in. I call and he turns over JJ. Easy).

Suddenly I was on 5000 and it was only the start of level 3.

My next big showdown win was about an hour later when my AA in the small blind was passed round to me (minimum raise from me. Call from BB. Rag flop. I bet about half the size of pot, he raises me all in. Easy game).

From there I went into Parkinson-terrier mode. I was particularly proud of my play of 76s on the bubble. I raised 3000 to 6000 with just 18000 left. Big blind (slightly less than me) called. Flop came K82 rainbow. He checked and I bet 5000 into a 17000 pit. And he folded. Way to go. That put me up to 26000 (avge stack 14000) and I was in the money.

As was Andy Holborn. Well done, Soak.

It then started to go a bit tits up. My raise with A2 suited in late was reraised all-in on the button and I called for a couple of thousand more. His QQ held up.

By now there were 33 players left and the average stack was 4 times the big blind! With 8 players at the table and in MP2 I got ATs. Well, the antes are 750 and the blinds are 3000-6000. I have 28000 and no-one behind me has more than 20000. I picked up Ace-Ten off. Since we were approaching the 30 to 29 bubble (and for long-term players, this made a difference of a hundred quid) I decided I could head back into stealing mode. I raised all-in and was, eventually and after much humming and hawwing, called by AQs behind me. Oh dear. No help from the board (this game is fixed!) and my stack is slaughtered.

That left me with 1.5BBs. Unfortunately there were now only 31 players left, which made my automatic all-in the next hand rather harder. I picked up 7-2 and reluctantly passed. That got me to 30th place. I was then moved directly onto the big blind. I got AJ, was all-in automatically, and saw J9 pick up the hand on a flop of J9x and a 9 on the turn for good measure. Exit in 27th for a hoped-for £320 payday (I'll check later).

So, £460 up on the evening. But I suspect we might have more of a roller coaster before the month is out.

Comments

[jellymillion.livejournal.com]

Flop came K82 rainbow. He checked and I bet 5000 into a 17000 pit. And he folded.

If Harrington On Hold'Em taught me one thing, it's the power of the continuation bet. I actually sit there, coaxing them, "go on son, check to the raiser, there's a good boy..." If not actually out loud, as they go down following the bet, I turn briefly (and no doubt unattractively) in Cartman, "You will respect mah authoritah".

33 players left and the average stack was 4 times the big blind

And people complain about Party. Can we spell "crapshoot?"

Nice job. Unlucky with the AJ, but you'd be in with that with more than 1.5BBs. Annoying to dominate and lose, though.

Mike

Unlucky with the AJ

[peterbirks.livejournal.com]

Well, given the size of the antes, I was all-in for 95% of a BB. If I had had 30,000 left, the small blind probably wouldn't have played his J9 off. If he had limped, I would have raised all-in and he would have folded. So the move with the AT cost me dearly.

But I was fortunate earlier on (in that my pairs held up to win) and I won a couple of steals with worse hands than AT! (A 63 off beat QJS with a pair of sixes, while a Q4 off sneaked home against KT with a flop of 44A -- in both cases I had a considerably larger stack than the opponent in the big blind).

You tend to hope for the best and expect the worst in tournaments. In my notes, I nornally write "no blame" or "BLAME!" after I have been eliminated. In the latter case I remember my error and vow not to make it again.

The reason that the avge stack was so small compared to the BB was because for about four levels we had seen no more than four hands per level. This was because the prize money in the lower echelons was proportionally higher than the entry fee (because of the multiplier effect), leading to mucho mucho stalling.

Paradoxically, I wasn't unhappy with this, because I reckoned I could steal some monstrous pots without seeing a flop (16000 in the pot before a card was dealt, by the time it got to that AT move, with only 750,000 in the whole tournament!). Unfortunately, my second all-in went wrong :-(

Oh, and Betfair haven't put the money in yet. How long do you reckon it will take them?

Re: Unlucky with the AJ

[andy-ward-uk.livejournal.com]

I played that one too. I was stunned that it was only half-full. If you play on Betfair and you weren't in this comp, what's your excuse ? Eh ?

Unfortunately I lost my first all-in confrontation, standing up to a button stealer with A8. My stack was such that I was getting 2-1 from the pot. He did have rags, but I lost the hand. I still managed 70th or so.

It doesn't surprise me that the stalling was even more pronounced in this game, although the funny thing is, there's no rational reason why it should be. The ratio of the big prizes to the consolation prizes is just the same whatever your multiplier is.

You often hear "the blinds are too high in the final" these days in B+M tournament, but the fact of the matter is, this usually isn't down to the structure, it's down to people stalling and playing defensively around the bubble.

Andy.

Re: Unlucky with the AJ

[peterbirks.livejournal.com]

I think that there is a rational reason why there was more stalling. The absolute amount of each move up the prize ladder at the lower levels was higher relative to the entry fee than it normally is. Well, I suppose that you could argue until you are blue in the face about whether this is "rational" (because the entry fee has "gone" and should really bear no part in thee calculations). You can say what you like aboput percentages of the total prize money, etc,, but the staller will respond "hell it's an extra hundred quid!" to which it's a bit hard to come back with a prompt, witty and acerbic mathematicallly correct response.