Level 6, I have 100k at 400bb. I've over bet 12 times in the first 6 levels, I've used 2 big live "things" to win big pot, I've finally found my live style that works and I feel like I'm unstoppable. 3 levels later, I'm in a taxi on the way home at 800bb with 000k chips and wanting to be anywhere in the world but Vegas.
I walked into the Rio today and as I got out the Taxi I asked myself. What am I bad at in poker. Randomly the first thing that came to my mind was "Squeezing" I imagined interviewing myself and I said in my mind "I don't know when, why, where or how to squeeze" its kinda true, except when I have really good hands or a very obvious spot for value I kinda don't know that much about squeezing. It all came on my first 5k tournament this year, I raised TT or JJ and somebody called then Rob Kuhn squeezed the button and I was like, fuck I have the 4th best hand in this entire game and I'm just fold like a pussy. Since then it's kinda always been on my mind as this trick that is very difficult to play against. Close to the bubble and a few times I've tried it and it's been successful, so I walked through the doors today deciding I was going to start squeezing and see what happens.
I started off at a table which was pretty decent except for one very good reg on my left, he is known to prob be top 10 but I've never played with him before. I was down to 20k from 25k and played a big pot with him to double up.
I call an open from active cut off with 66 in the small blind, the top 10 reg squeezes bb 300-300-1500. Opener folds, I call relatively quickly. Flop K62r, I c/c 1400.
Turn k626, I check, he bets 3500 and I remember my live tell that I gave off early in the series against Doug Polk where I called turn too quickly with a hand that wanted to overrepresent and induce river checks. I know this player is a live pro and will pick up on this stuff so thought this is the exact board he will triple barrel me on, usually I would take 90 seconds or so, but somehow computed this in 5-6 seconds and decided to call quickly and rep 77-jj/kq/kj thinking he will jam a lot of rivers as I'm somewhat capped.
River is blank, I check and he shoves over pot on the river and I snap. He has chance to turn his hand over as we are all in but decides to muck it deep into the muck so assume 99% he has an air ball assuming my quick turn call was weak.
I felt pretty great and played pretty splashy for next 30 minutes or so, my image was absurd but I was expecting it to pay off for me.
"Oh I haven't tried that squeeze thing yet" weak reg opens, 2 guys call, I make it 2700 at 200bb, first reg calls and c/f XXX. JESUS FUCKING CHRIST THIS IS MAGIC. Patrick "The Squeeze" Leonard I started calling myself.
I moved to a new table with Greg Merson, Kyle Frey and some guys I don't know. Very first hand (last hand of 100/200 no ante) Fish raises to 500 UTG and Greg flats MP, one more flat and I made it 2700 on the button (SQUEEEEZE), fish folds and Greg makes it 6200. I take like 45 seconds and makes it 16300, Greg folds and I show J3hh. Now this hand looks like complete spew and very possibly is. Thoughts were the following
Greg has a lot of hands that play decent as 4bet folds such as KQ/AJ/AT, its very possible he 4bet/folds a hand like AKo and when a fish opens even if he wants to be balanced its very likely he will 3bet QQ+, furthermore my sizing looks pretty bluffy I would imagine so imagine him to be looser than normal, also its the first hand of the table, he very likely doesn't know who I am so I can def be the kid who's 3betting the button but very unlikely I will 5bet for 35-40% of effective stacks. I think he's light here very often meaning its a pretty profitable 4bet with any two cards, although I really like his back raise even if it is potentially face up. I haven't done anything like this all summer, I had one spot vs Mark Radoja early in the series when I really wanted to 4b ship 98o and I was sure on my read but bottled it, this time I really just thought I had to do it. He had AKo and showed/folded.
Obviously this gives me a pretty incredible table image. I think less than a orbit later I raise UTG with JTss and fish flats bb. Flop AJ2ddh check, I cbet 600, fish calls.
Turn AJ29ddhh check, I bet 7900 into around 2200. I felt this player would call me always with combo draws like KQ/KT fd, 9xfd, t8fd, t7fd but would sighhhhhhhh fold Ax almost always. The way I assumed he played he would raise 2 pair on the flop and on the turn with SPR he would probably ship it all in. River was AJ292 and I check back hoping he didn't have Axdd. It's actually a super interesting spot where you can go for value/bluff (potentially merge used correctly in a sentence? I'm scuuuured to try) Jx/KK/QQ and allows you to bet them on the flop too for value/protection wte.
Over the next 2-3 levels, I think I put opponents all in or over bet 10+ times, my image must have been crazy, I had a lot of chips and was very confident with all reads/playing styles. I literally can't remember a lot of the hands but many would have been the main hand I would have blogged about in other tournaments, I don't know what it was, I was just really dialled in.
The button raised and the BB had been squeezing his cards really hard every time and tank folding, I kinda thought he was just ready to put it in. Previously I had been seen cold calling 96s in the SB so I thought I could balance/protect my range whilst inducing jams from hands I do really well against with my AKo. I flat and bb jammed 18ish and unfortunately I lost to ATo.
Mentally I was ok I think. I continued playing a lot of pots using very big sizings. I built back up again then lost A2o v AJo on 982A all in, 9otr. I think the table at least some what respected how I played but I think I took this one visibly bad, it was just the whole losing every all in when building big stacks from non showdown that I've had really big problems with throughout the trip. Again I'm not sure if its a sign of entitlement or why I feel so bad, bad beats are inevitable to happen I guess I just want that next breakout score, I don't know..
We moved table and again I had somewhat of a bad image. I flat AA in position vs a guy called Chance Kornuth or something who seemed pretty drunk. He bet, bet like almost half of his stack then c/f a9 on 762J2. Very next hand I raise, fish flats and he ships 25ish, I call 88 pretty quickly and lose to his 99. I really felt like he would be as wide as possible here and again inside started to bemoan my luck. I went from playing a lot of pots to just playing tight and trying to stack the drunk Chance guy. He was an extremely great guy and played good, his leak would perhaps be playing too many hands but he was in position on me somewhat, so I had to try and exploit that by playing tighter I think. Anyway, I really enjoyed his and the rest of the tables company including Sebastian Saffari who I was sat next to and despite coming from the same town have never met. We chatted about all sorts and got on well.
The next significant pot I played was fish limp UTG, Sebastian makes it 2100 at 600bb, dealer reveals a King and somebody says something and Sebastian said something like "thats good for my hand" in a way where I just believed him lol I overcall 87hh off 100k (Sebastian has 45kish, fish has 40ish) fish obviously calls.
Flop
, Seb cbets 3200 and I raise to 8100. I think this actually hits my calling range pretty hard, other hands I call with that can bluff are like AThh, if I flat 22-66 I'm obviously not bluffing those, same for 88-QQ, they would be bad hands to bluff with. I could bluff raise 98hh too, T9hh too coming to think of it, I think I'm perceived perhaps to have JJ/77/KJ/ flush draws? perhaps the bluffs I mentioned above.
Turn is
, he has 36k and the pot is 22k. I think this is a good spot to leverage his stack, I bet 10.9k I wanted to go 6.5k and then jam river I think but felt at the time this would get slightly more fold equity ott. Seb took a long time on the turn and the clock was called he said "Please let me have another minute to think over it" and I believe him that he had a tough spot, probably AK/AA/KQ kinda hand. I decided if he called I'd jam clubs/t/q, eventually he called. I felt like he was being pressurised into calling the turn with the clock being called.
River was
he checked and I put him all in for 25k. I had decided to give up on blanks/fire clubs as I just expected clubs to usually make their mind up quicker on the turn. He insta called with AJcc and I guess I made a bad read with his turn timing/clock being called etc, it felt really genuine, but I should have remembered "weak showdown/never folding turn/prob folding river = quick turn call!"
I felt really ok I think though. I was asking myself was this a punt or not, but I felt ok about it all really. I had 65k and basically folded every single hand for 90 minutes, I raised T9cc and c/f K72 and then raised AK and c/f 974.
It was the last hand before bb1k and I was UTG. The clumsy fucking dealer mistakenly flipped my first card (
) and I looked at the first card (black ten) eagerly anticipate the 2nd card hoping it was an Ace so I could berate the dealer, but no, another black ten. I raise to 2k UTG and drunk Chance, a bad reg, the uber whale and Sebastian call. (11k? in the pot) flop 876hhx whale quickly bets 2 orange chips (10k) Seb folds, the other two guys have like 15k so not too concerned, I think the fish can be pretty wide here, random 8x, draws etc. I decide to call.
Turn 8767 he quickly goes all in for 45k into 30ish. I didn't really think a long time before calling, I think calling TT no flush blocker < calling AA for obvious reasons. He had 66 for a full house and I didn't get there. I really felt pretty OK about my call. But walking away I had a very similar feeling to Monte Carlo, not tilted at all, no desire to go gamble in the pit, just upset, sad, big stack to busto so quickly, many unfortunate stuff going against me and feeling like I wanted to get out of here asap. My taxi driver gave me a bunch of BS in the taxi which added to the pain! I was so so so so happy 3 hours earlier, I don't think I've ever felt as confident as this Greg Merson asked me if I was playing the $500k like it may be standard that I am! I just felt very composed, very upbeat, very dialled in.
Both big pots I played on my third table are very questionable. I'm perfectly fine with my play in both of them, but perhaps both are avoidable. I don't know. Realistically though, I had a lot of chips, I was playing every pot then a big character came and slowed me down by doing nothing against me at all except drinking a lot and playing a lot of pots, most of them passively. I had 3x tournament average 170bb, my style had worked so great so far and then I just decided to shut down and go back to playing tight. In the middle of playing tight I raise flop and barrel off into the rivered nuts. I've no idea why I stopped over betting and squeezing, it was working for me so well. I said FU to Greg Merson (don't mean this personally at all, very, very, very, very nice guy) and showed him the j3hh, I have 3x that stack now and this guy can't hurt my stack at all, why don't I stay in 5th gear and go for it?
Either way morale is very low now. I definitely feel like if I played tomorrow and things didn't go my way that I could be close to burning out so I'm just going to decide to take the day off and probably the next day too and then come back on the weekend for Monster Stack. With the way I play and how deep I try to get into it, its just very tough for me to just go from very very happy to very very sad. It's just emotion and I'm glad I have it, but perhaps its my biggest enemy. I don't play this game to be sad and in live poker when there's no tables left its a really lonely, upsetting place to be.
I'll be back stronger next week.
Author