Soooooooo, busted the 50k today. Previously when I had busted big tournaments like this I had felt pretty bad afterwards, maybe some entitlement tilt etc, this one I think I felt completely fine.
Day 1 went really good, except for winning KK v 88 aip, I chipped up without any all ins and finished day 1 3/30.
Day 2 started poorly, went from 615k -> 200k -> 300k -> 100k -> 400k -> 150k > 500k > 200k -> 0k
Can't remember all hands in chronological order, will try to post the more interesting ones.
Hand 1Nick Petrangelo opens hj, I flat T8s OTB, Dario calls bb
Flop: K94r, checks to me, I bet, Dario Calls, Nick folds
Turn: K94Qxxss (my fd) I bet biggish leaving 0.8% spr, Dario calls
River: K94Q9, Dario checks, I check, Dario wins with K7o
Very interesting spot. Pre flop obviously standard, otf with BDFD, I think stabbing is close, but Dario was over defending pre flop (defended 94o in bb previously) so will have more off suit combos than most here, and I think vs Nick stabbing is the correct strategy with bdfd and checking without.
Turn, is obviously one of the best cards in the deck for me to continue barreling, Dario will have hands like 9x that will be forced to fold and hands like kx kicker under the 9 are in a very difficult situation, he picks up equity with hands like QJ, QT, T9, J9, Kxss, 4xss, I bet pretty big as I know he's quite a big station so if I do improve then want to jam for value.
River, very bad card, some hands I could credibly rep for value such as 99, K9s, he can discount now and all the draws brick. I think villain will be definitely overcalling this kind of river spot putting me on all the AJ/AT combos blasting off as well as back door spades, when he has a hand like QT/KT/KJ he is going to find it really difficult to fold and he's not capped either, he has 44, q9, k9, 99, jt etc, so I get to the river with a similar amount of value combos that he does and as he's on his first bullet and at 50% of starting stack whilst it probably shouldn't be a huge consideration I think it will put him into overcalling. I think k7o is very close turn spot for him, its a board where people are going to triple very often as bluffs and its a board where there are not so many bluffs either, blocking a bunch of value hands is good, but if you end up folding a lot of rivers you're not realising your equity anyway. Pretty close spot, against a bunch of guys I would have shoved this combo, but think checking here was correct.
Hand 2Vojtech opens co, I flat button 87dd, sb fishreg calls, bb reg calls.
Flop: QJ8xdh, checks to me, I bet, sb folds, bb calls, CO folds
Turn: QJ8Axxhh, bb check, I bet biggish, leaving spit 0.5ish otr, he calls
River: QJ8AA, bb check, I all in, he calls KTo
Really interesting hh imo. If people played with me this stop they will realise I took a lot more time between decisions pre/flop, I have been working with somebody and trying to get a lot of information pre flop / flop where people will give away tells, IMO, once pot gets big OTT/OTR people will generally manage their "poker face' very well because its a big pot, but 4 way otf if somebody isn't interested they will often let you know more than they should, or if they are folding pre flop/not super interested in the hand it massively impacts decision making too, can change cut off rfi from say 30% to 60% pretty easily in a lot of spots.
Pre flop I think is fine, I would like to 3bet at some frequency, but definitely VPIP. Flop I took my time and pretty much knew that 1 of the 3 players was definitely folding and the original raiser seemed weak too. Betting this flop isn't going to get a tonne of fold equity, but I think its close.
We get to the turn and I imagine flop calling range is looking something like:
Q7o+ Q2s+ J9/JT/AJo, AT, 98, T8, T9, KT HCD
When I bet the turn he's going to continue with something like
Q2hh, Q3hh, Q4hh, Q5hh, Q6hh, Q7hh, Q9hh, QT (12 combos) J9hh, J7hh, JT (12 combos), KQ (12 combos) KJ (12 combos), ATo (12 combos) T9 (12 combos) KT (12 combos) QJ (9 combos) Q8 (6 combos) J8 (6 combos) 88 (1 combo)
So on the river he should get there with 109 combos. Notice my hand doesn't block his turn continuing range except for some 2 pair combos meaning that obviously if I'm betting this turn I have to triple barrel river. As I probably don't auto profit solely off his qx folds ott. One big exception for this is that on day 1 this following hand played.
https://www.pokernews.com/tours/ept/2016-ept-prague/50000-super-high-roller/chips.150297.htmVillain called sb with Q2cc after ep open and button flat, so he may defend his bb slightly wider than most here and thus we get some more auto folds ott than against some tighter pre flop defenders.
Anyway, so we're assuming villain never raises T9 on the flop or KTo ott (somewhat reasonable, villain is super friendly and nice guy and told me he would probably raise 20-30% of combos, but wte) We're at those 110 combos (these could be mis counted, its 5am here)
Q2hh, Q3hh, Q4hh, Q5hh, Q6hh, Q7hh, Q9hh, QT (12 combos) J9hh, J7hh, JT (12 combos), KQ (12 combos) KJ (12 combos), ATo (12 combos) T9 (12 combos) KT (12 combos) QJ (9 combos) Q8 (6 combos) J8 (6 combos) 88 (1 combo)
The river is QJ8AA, my range for getting here is something like AT, AQ, 88, T9s, KTo, KTs QJo, QJs, K9s, potentially T8s and 98s
On the river the spr is 0.5 so lets say pot size is 300k and I bet 150k, he has to call 150k to win 450k.
On the river, I'm assuming his definite calling range is ATo (12 combos) T9 (12 combos) KT (12 combos) 88 (1 combo) = 37 combos, meaning he has an additional 73 combos in his range. I think with everything considered, he will be folding the river with the other combos very often, hands such as KQ whilst blocking KT will not be blocking Ax and will be blocking hands that I could bluff like K9s/98s, his desirable bluff catchers to add to his range would potentially be Q8 (blocking AQ/88) having a jack doesn't change anything really.
So on the river he is going to call around 33% of the time and fold 67% of the time, meaning that 33% of the time I lose 150k and 67% of the time I win 300k.
So
33% = 49.5k
67% = 201k
I think whilst the run out is somewhat lucky for my hand to barrel against his range, my assumptions are not going to be overly optimistic because I have him raising the nuts 0% when in reality he will be raising those combos 30% of the time or so, the other side of the argument is he sometimes raises flop with some hands like potentially j9 etc, but tbh I think thats unlikely.
Overall, I think the triple barrel is fine and just kinda unlucky he's so far up in his range.
Hand 3Vojtech opens LJ (UTG 6 handed), I defend bb J9o
Flop: 976ccx, I shove 1.15 spr
This hand I was very unsure about on the flop, lets say the pot was 150k and I have 165k in my stack, the 150k is so so so so valuable, protecting my equity in this kind of situation is really important, I think its a board that he is not going to cbet wide at all as I will be c/shoving a lot of hands and thus his ace highs and overlords bdfds, etc will basically always check, they have somewhere north of 25% equity vs me so its important so protect my equity vs those hands, also when I get called I'm not going to be dead, he can call with worse etc. I'm really unsure about this exact spot, but having 2 fish on my left and being able to have chips seemed very important. I think Vojtech is top top reg and won't make mistakes vs bet or vs check, so decided to shove, I started the hand with say 12bbs so obviously can never be a catastrophe. Interested on thoughts on this, but I THINK its good.
Hand 4Steve O'Dwyer opens UTG, Leon defends button, I defend SB T9cc, bb folds
Flop: 873xxc, I check, Steve Bets 40%, Leon calls, I shove, Leon calls A8o
This hand was pretty unfortunate, I had just gained a lot of momentum, I had doubled up twice and now had around 30bbs.
Steve likes to open wide, especially on this table where there were 2 out of 6 players very weak/bad. Ike was on his direct left so would be the least likely to get involved and I was in sb, so great spot to open. Leon called button, he had previously limped j6 in the hj, so was VERY splashy. I had T9cc in the sb, I thought about 3bet calling vs Leon, I'm definitely getting the right price and would be fine, but decided to call, bb folds.
Flop, I think Steve will overcbet this board because I'm oop and predominantly high card heavy and Leon is SO wide pre that the bet will have a very high success rate, Leon called, and whilst I have 30bbs, I think shoving is really good and for sure the best play. Leon is calling every ACE high otf, all bdfds, random bottom pairs, random middle pairs, KJ/KQ etc. There is 2.5x x 3 pre, + 1bb + 1bb in antes, so 9bbs pre + 7bbs in post flop, so shoving 30bbs here and getting folds (very often) will add over 50% to my stack and take me to almost 50bbs which is great. When I get called from Leon I'm going to usually have around 55% equity. Leon tanked and eventually after calling the clock on him (I told him before that I was scared to call the clock on him incase he kills me, but it was a really long time) he eventually called with A8o, which wasn't doing well vs my range ofc
but was now in a pot for a really really nice stack. Unfortunately despite turning an OESFD, we bricked, but I was happy with the line.
Hand 5Koray opens hj, Leon flats button, I jam 20bbs SB with KTdd, Koray rejams AJcc, we lose
Koray and Leon had a big dynamic, Leon was flatting really wide pre flop, this hand we get great information about his hand and will assume he calls 0% of the time, I think Koray is opening something like 35% in this situation, maybe a little bit tighter, but Elky in the cut off really would just play shove/fold and would play tight and Leon is going to play passively so opening more is fine, especially if your opponent is flatting 50%+
I think with 22bbs rejamming here is great, I pick up around 6-7bbs pre flop when they both fold which will happen a lot, if Leon flicks it in I won't be in terrible shape and Koray is going to have to fold a bunch of hands he opens with. Koray makes pretty easy rejam with AJs and we lose the decent sized pot and gg.
Really loved this entire tournament, I think its the first tournament I've played where I wouldn't have made a single sizing/line different throughout, big lesson here for people who are reading is really just to take an extra 10-20 seconds and work out your range and how your range wants to play the spot and then if that makes sense in line with exploitative reads. I felt completely at ease throughout, there was a bunch of small bluffs/small value bets with very read specific stuff which obviously I can't go into specifics on the blog, but whilst I loved this tournament and believe my roi was far higher than the MU I sold for, I think that will be the last big high roller I will play for the next 6 months or so. I have no desire to go to PCA/Aussie Millions or any of the new PokerStars stops until probably Barcelona. I will spend the next 6 months or so just living in London, grinding real hard in real life, real hard online, real hard staking and real hard in live cash games.
Oh shit just remembered there is a 25k turbo in 2 days, will play that and the 10k here ofc, but I promise after then no more!
Main event today, really looking forward to playing!
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