EPT 25K Highroller Day 1I'm going to say this and I know its not going to sound good to investors, but I really dont feel like I should be playing 25k tournaments.
I just took a bad beat which 99.9% of the time I take perfectly fine but here it hit me really badly. It was the last hand of the day, I've been happy all day, even when times were going really bad I was very optimistic and played as close to A game as possible, but when this river card happened, I can't really explain it but it hurt me mentally way more than it should have done.
Walking back to my hotel I felt genuinely very, very sad and thats a pretty bad thing. Bad beats are part of everything, I should just accept it and move on to the next hand, but this time it just made me genuinely sad/upset and thats a terrible mindset to have.
My first table was amazing, very, very good. At one point there was 2 regs and 4 big fish. Will post some hands of note.
Table 1, hand 1Talal limps, I 5x with AhAd, he calls.
Flop QT4hhx, he checks, I check back.
Turn QT48hhxh, he bets big, I call
River QT487hhxhx, he bets big, I call.
Generally I thought this would likely be a 2 street kind of hand, just because he was raising a lot and was his first limp so expected some kind of pocket pair that may bluff when I check but usually some pretty bad hands, I'm very sure hes raising hands like q9-aq rather than limping them and generally he bets big when he has iniaitive so I get 2 larger streets rather than conventionally cbetting 1/3 pot or whatever would be standard. He had 43hh for a flush so that was a small dent, but was very happy with my decision to check flop which is non standard generally.
Table 1, hand 2Recreationally player that I have played with before and know quite well, I think he views me as good/tightish, opens UTG and I have AKo in the small blind and decide to 3bet for value. I think he will call a lot of dominated hands. He calls and I cbet 662, he calls. The turn is 6624 and he is like a clever recreational player, I decide to bet 1.2x pot which was essentially making him decide for his tournament life. I think he thinks I view him as bad and I'm likely being greedy with this kind of bet, he has so many hands I can make fold and when he does call I have 6 outs basically always. On the river 66244 I decide to check as I was using my turn as a 2 street hand, if I wanted to get value from his turn call/river folding range I would bet smaller ott to jam the river. All in all a pretty close decision on the turn, but I think it was the right decision. He has 55 so turned a gutshot, I think he folds 77-TT often.
Table 1, hand 3Simon Higgins raises cut off, Macau fish flats button, I flat bb with K3cc. Flop k63cdd, I check, Higgins cbets, Macau flats and I raise really big, like 40% of my stack. I had too much to jam, and a small raise looked really weird and the Macau guy was completely OI. He calls and the turn is k636 lol and I check/fold to his arrin and I'm left pretty frustrated.
Table 1, hand 4Not long after bvb for 24bbs, sb jams, I call AQ, he has QJ and flop is QJ4zzz.
I felt pretty happy about this though, I mean it was a bad beat for a stack at a great table, but I hadn't forced anything, I'd played great/solid without having any spots of anything particularly interested. I lost 2 big pots which were unfortunate, but didn't feel too bad. I went to rebuy and started 2nd table.
This was a lot tougher table, Dani Stern, Fedor, Sorel, Pokerturo etc.
Table 2, hand 1I tanked for 14 minutes in this hand which sounds kinda ridiculous right? We were on break though and it was my tournament life so I wanted to make sure I was right.
I open to 2400 UTG and PokerTuro flats cut off.
Flop 972ddx, I have black jacks and decide to check. I think this is a kinda board I can check my whole range. C/F kq/broadway type of hands, c/c flush draws, sets, overpairs, akdx kind of hands. I think he will call flop very often here on this board with back doors and just generally with his middling pairs and ofc he may flat his entire range pre so could potentially have TT-AA pre (very likely flats 99-QQ anyway)
He bets 4600 which felt so big, there was only around 6k in here and generally people stab say 35% so around 2300 so 4600 felt super big. It felt like he was trying to "get me to fold AK" it was the last hand of the level before the break so he may have thought I will just fold a lot to this size. I obviously call.
Turn 972dd5. I check and he bets 9800 into 15000, again this felt like such a big bet, I had 22000 behind so he was setting up river shove of 22000 into 45000 which seemed weird. Why would he not bet 6000 and have a closer to PSB left on the river? I could jam here but I decided to just call again and reevaluate river.
River was 972ddx5xKd, I checked and he put me all in for 22k.
Now this was such a tough/weird spot. I definitely get to the river with flushes, I definitely have 99/77/AA so JJ isn't necessarily a snap call, first of all I tried to think of what he could have for value
99 - unlikely because of flop/turn size
77 - unlikely because of flop/turn size
22 - unlikely because of flop/turn size
Flushes? He could have flushes, was he betting this size on the turn to price himself in? Very possibly.. Would he really bet SO big on the flop though and even the turn too?
Kx - I felt like he could have a hand like KQ/KT on the flop/turn trying to get me to fold Ax, this felt like the most likely hand that he got to the river with, but would he really jam these hands? He jammed pretty quickly too.
So what bluffs could he have? AQ? probably plays flop/turn differently. JT? I block JT very hard, other JTs combo is JTdd, so theres only one combo of JT. A2/A4s, potentially... but maybe he uses these as 3bet bluff hands pre flop, but definitely he could, but again unlikely to me. Would he really bet 87 like this on flop/turn and then jam it as a bluff on the river? Seems unlikely to me.
I just basically had no idea what he had, but it kept telling me inside "he doesnt have anything for value here, he wouldnt play it like this" I know, similarily to the main event a few days ago that 6 months ago I 100% called here, I was hero calling way too much in live poker, but I knew it was a leak, I knew I needed to rectify it and I've really tried. But what the fuck can he really have? Eventually I just folded and left myself with 20k coming back to 1200bb.
I whittled down to 13k and then won with AA vs 99 to get upto a good stack. I played this stack decent, got some steals and resteals through, picked some bluffs off and made some good decisions.
Table 2, hand 3I don't want to say the reg because he won't read this and dont want others to know, but I know he punts pre flop if you think he's trying to go after him. He opened to 3500 UTG off 40k and I had 36k in the bb at 1600bb.
I know his friends bought pieces of me in a previous 25k and he will most likely think I'm good/thinking. I made it 9800 after asking his stack size and I thought this sizing would look the most full of shit.
He stared me down and asked me some questions and asked me to count my chips, I tried to count them the same that last time somebody 3bet folded vs me counted their chips
and he jammed KQo and I got a really good double.
We had two orbits left of the night and I got over 90k, I won a pot where I defended AJo and called 844 and won on the river.
Table 2, hand 4Very last hand of the day, everybody is stood up around, high fiving, hugging, bagging up chips, I'm so happy with my stack, really feel fantastic that the day has gone so well, even if I'm in for 50k
I look down at two beautiful, beautiful red kings. I make it 4800 and 1800bb vs Dan Smith who I asked was he on his first or second bullet (he was on first) and had 50k exactly. I think making it a larger sizing will induce him if he just thinks he has a read he will go for it. He makes it 12300 and I'm actually really dissapointed in myself. I didn't even think about calling. I had thought so logically all day, even with 11bbs I thought for 20 seconds before shoving, weighing up limping/r/c etc and this time I just instantly jammed. He will be light there at times for sure but I didn't even think of what the best range play there was. Of course I can never play KK wrong by jamming, but it COULD have not been the highest EV line and I'm so sad that I played my complete A game for all the day then the last hand of the entire day I know I have 1 hand to play and decide to not take my time. I mean I took 14 minutes with JJ previously, why could I not take 20 seconds to at least consider flat calling here?
Anyway I jam and he snaps AJ and a few of my friends are there. I really don't think I'm going to lose, without getting the violins out generally I have ran really poorly in the small amount of 10ks+ I've played, AA<KK, AA<QQ, AK<AQ, AK<JJ, AQ<QJ etc etc but this time I just felt everything was going to be fine.
T92 flop, 7 turn and Dan threw his cards across the table weirdly and the river pinged the 8 and I just felt shattered, like a huge dagger. It's very hard to expain.
I know I'm writing this message like I'm moaning, I literally came back to my room, opened my laptop and started writing, I definitely feel hard done by or entitled or soemthing and I really shouldn't. This isn't how the game works.
Sorry if investors feel like I have a bad mindset or something, I'm just trying to be honest.
I go back tomorrow with somewhere between 43-46k. I'll be honest I could hardly count my chips when I put them into the bag, I was just shellshocked by a super, uber standard BVB hand where the money was always going in. I tried counting but just couldn't and put the chips in the bag and will be back in 12 hours.
I'm obviously going to make sure I prepare perfectly, I will meditate, eat well, sleep well and really try to do great visualization before I play. It just means so much to me that its hard to describe sometimes, but for those who invested don't worry I am adamant I bring my A game tomorrow, if things don't go well then so be it.
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