EPT Main Event Day 2Had a weird feeling about yesterday. In the past I've always just decided I really want to progress and survive in the MTT, which is totally, totally fine, but today I woke up and told my friend Fabio I was going to try and be the best player in the room. Now in terms of trying to own everybody, but just making the best decision in every hand possible. To be its super, super, super (yes 3 supers!) motivating to try and be the best and feel super proud. I can't really remember any times when I haven't made a mistake in a live tournament. Its sad really as we get so long to think about every decision, I guess addrenalin effects things, I'm unsure.
Anyway, we started on table with Dominik Nitsche, Sebastian Pauli, EdwardHopper and then nobody else really of note. I started playing pretty tight, basically opening no hands but 3betting light in good spots against 30bb stacks who would have to shove or fold. Basically you get those online kids who play super tight but then come to live poker and just start opening like 35% when folded to them, when they have 30bbs they are perfect candidates to just 3bet pretty large so they can't peel. I imagine they are even folding hands as strong as 88 and AT which when they are opening something like j8s+, j9o+, k0o+, k6s+, a2o+ etc etc is just absolutely printing.
I didn't have any really interesting hands on the first table. I called down an Italian guy with 66 when he was obviously just bluffing.
Hand 1I decided to come to the table before everybody else, have my hood up and shades on and music on. I didn't say a word for the first 90 minutes. I raised AQdd at 800/1600 to 4200 and hijac and mp called. Flop was KT9ss. I decided I would bet 3 streets here pretty often and get kx/tx/jj/qq kind of hands to fold. I bet 4600 and only the bb called.
The turn was KT9ssx
. He checked and I just changed my plan and decided to check back. Blasting off here is probably higher ev though imo.
River was KT9ssx
. He checked and I probably have the worst hand in my range so decided to bluff. I bet 7800 and he went into the tank and was agonising abit. The whole table had been talking quite abit, but I wanted to give off this kind of quiet assassin style I like to speak about. After around 45 seconds, with my music really loud in my ear (so I'm not sure how loud it came across) I said "please don't raise me" this seemed to fuck him off quite a bit. He tanked a long time and then after around 70 seconds I said "Ok, you can raise me" he went deeper and deeper in tank then I called a clock. Eventually he folded
The table broke pretty early. I turned t5o into a bluff on j52aj where i defend bb, call flop, turn check/check, river I pot and he folds Ax.
We move table and I decide to change mannerisms completely. I go from the guy with hood up, shades on to the guy who is talking every hand, asking questions, trying to build some meta-game.
Hand 2This hand was so fucked up.Deck just gets changed as I'm arriving at the table. Greek reg raises MP from 100k, I defend BB with A2ccfrom 120k.
Flop
.
I check, he bets 3000 (raised to 2400 pre). I ask the dealer "what is the ruling if I win at showdown and have the
in my hand" "FLOOR" inside I cringe so much, I didn't intent to cause so much drama out of it, just a little levelling so I could leads a lot of turn cards against him. Floor comes over, people start looking over, media come. Eventually I call.
Turn
I lead 17.5k into the 10kish pot. The greek reg is like WTFFFFFFFFF, seems pained and tank folds. I tell him he can choose a card and he chooses an Ace and I tell the floor that I was only joking and fortunately they saw the funny side of it.
I continue playing pretty aggresive, I raise/call aj vs qj and win and then raise/4bet bluff a5o vs Oxota (Daniel Dvoress) who is a super good player. We basically were speaking about life/poker everything and it was abit more refreshing than how the other table was. Things were going great and I was winning the majority of pots playing super aggressive. I defend bb when utg opens and mp calls. Flop is k44, checks to mp who bets 5k into 13, I c/r to 24k and he folds.
Very next hand Strungout raises button to 3200 at 1600 bb. He has 55k total and I have Ah
in the sb, I'm loving life here as I know him online and how he plays but not sure he knows me but I'm literally taking every spot so far on this table. I 3bet to 9600 and he tank jams 55k and I snap and lose to QQ. That was a little bit gutting to be honest. I felt like I'd just been taking all spots that I normally don't take and playing really as best as I could and then this 60k I had won from non showdown is lost in a pot which I couldn't do anything about. Anyway I still have 105k so no problem at all.
Hand 3I don't think I've tanked as long about a decision as this one in a long, long time.
Polish weak/tight reg opens to 3700 from mp at 1600bb. Strungout makes it 9400 from exactly 100k in the cut off and I have AQ on the button. I definitely have a 4bc and a 4bf range here. I think my 4bf range should be AQs/AQo/KQo/KQs and then potentially AJs/KJs depending on how I perceive villain in terms of initial aggression. What we can assume here is that he's basically never 5bet shoving light, because he's not going to be 3betting a weak guy iniitally with a hand like 22-TT because they just play way better as calls.
I decide to size to 21,700. Because my bluffing range here is hands with super high playability and also because of my stack size I don't need to go so big, lets say I have a range that is more weighted towards super polarizing hands like a4o rather than the suited broadways that I would peel for whatever reason, then maybe I would go to 26,300 or something to get more fold equity, but here even if he calls OOP, I'm going to have a huge range advantage. Anyway, I 4bet and he calls.]
So now I basically will always think his range is suited broadways/AQ and not toooo much else. I imagine he flats 22-TT pre, jams JJ/QQ over my cold 4bet because the pot is fucking huge and he really needs to protect. But he could definitely trap me with AA/KK and would be pretty good as I probably have to stack off on a tonne of boards, especially when I flop top pair as will be way too shallow.
The flop is T92r. We have 50k pot and 80k stacks. WTF spot. So close between everything. At the time I assumed that he had all these broadways/AQ. I think he would fold AQ when I cbet and with his broadways he will continue. I didn't want to turn my hand face up as AK (even thought i have AQ) and wanted to protect the pot that was really big compared to my stack. I don't need to use a big sizing here. I decided to bet 13,700, this would leave 80k pot and 60k stacks on the turn which would be a natural sized jam that I could be comfortable with.
He took around 1 minute and then jammed for 80k total. Now this may seem again like sigh, fold. But wtf can he have that beats us. Think about the hand yourself first for a minute, what kind of range would you put him on?
Hands that beat me
JJ, I assumed he would jam this pre
QQ, ditto
KK, I think he would just continue to trap or perhaps click induce
AA, ditto
Hands that completely crush me
TT, I'd imagine he 3bets this and then calls my 4bet super low % of the time. If he had it I would assume he doesn't just jam the flop too
99, Ditto, even more so.
So wtf beats us?!
Tx. This is what I was most concerned about. JTs, QTs,
But then in my mind if he has Tx then he must absolutely have QJ/KJ/KQ too right? Probably at a even higher frequency. I came to the conclusion that his range is almost certainty 2overs+sd, or Tx. At worst against this range I usually have 6 outs. At best I'm doing really great and we gonna call for some deucees.
I took around 5 minutes and then called and he had JJ. I really didn't assume he would ever have this hand. The pot was huge and I've played numerous other pots previously in tournaments and been super unhappy with the results but here I've felt compeltely chill about it. I really still like my reasoning and my range that I gave him. The only thing that I could have done different I think is check back flop. At the time I just wasn't comfortable doing it though.
What do you think about the hand? Oxota is probably top 10 reg imo and said he would have played it exactly the same, so that was comforting and maybe why I felt fine about it afterwards. We spoke about it last night with my stable and we thought lonngggggg and just couldn't come up with exactly what was best.
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